Absolution
by Scribbled Nonsense
Summary: The smallest thing can affect the course of a person's life. Ryou Bakura, who was already teetering on the edge of upheaval, is slowly discovering that his birthday present -a mysterious golden pendant- may change his life entirely. B/R, slight AU
1. Intro

Title: Absolution

Rating: M

Summary: The smallest thing can affect the course of a person's life. Ryou Bakura, who was already teetering on the edge of upheaval, is slowly discovering that his birthday present may change his life entirely. (B/R, slight AU)

Notes: You know what bugs me, both in cannon YuGiOh and fanfiction? I never believe Ryou's reaction when he discovers Bakura. Season zero and the manga came pretty close, but I still don't think it had quite the scope I was looking for… and then subsequent seasons of YGO washed out his personality and gave him very few appearances until close to the end. Hence my story shall be about Ryou receiving the Ring and trying to cope with the darkness that inhabits it.

I'd also like to mention that this is slightly AU, but if it did fall within one of the cannons I'm leaning more toward the manga cannon rather than the anime, since Ryou had more appearances and more personality in the manga. Also, expect Ryou and Bakura to be out of character at time. They both have to experience a full range of emotions, so there will be times when Ryou gets angry and Bakura feels something akin to tenderness.

And, finally, this story was named after an album from Muse. Each subsequent chapter will correspond to one of the songs on the album.

* * *

Absolution Chapter One: Intro

The first thing Ryou became aware of was the smell of burning pizza. For several seconds nothing else registered, no touches or sounds, as he simply experienced that one smell. Slowly, thought came back to him, and from that dizzying whirl of inanity came one thing: _Why_ could he smell burning pizza?

He threw off the shroud of sleep in an instant, cursing as he vaulted over the couch and dashed into the kitchen. His dinner was quite past the point of being done. With a sigh, he pulled the charred pizza from the oven, bemoaning his lack of luck; it was the third time something like this had happened this week alone.

"Maybe I should I stop napping while I make dinner," he muttered disparagingly to himself. He would have muttered it to someone else, but he lived alone. Not by choice though, it wasn't as though he enjoyed the oppressive solitude to any degree. His parents had made the decision on their own, packing up all of his stuff and shipping him off to an apartment in Domino City without the tiniest hint of his consent. He couldn't fault them for it though, they had only sent him away because of the extreme violence and bullying he had faced at his former school; still, it wasn't as though sending him to a new city would take away the personal qualities other people found worth terrorizing him over. But he could, and would, resent his parents over the decision they had forced upon him. In one fell swoop they had taken everything from him—his friends, his home, and most importantly his beloved little sister. Amane was a bright star in a dark world, caring and comforting and completely entranced by her older brother.

He hadn't been completely abandoned though; his father visited as often as possible—which, admittedly, wasn't particularly often. Professor Bakura lived for the thrill of uncovering lost history; it was a miracle that he had been able to pull himself away from Egypt long enough to have a family in the first place. And now, with his domestic life divided between two separate households, Ryou saw less of him than ever.

Shaking the melancholy thoughts from his head, Ryou turned back to his ruined dinner. How had it managed to get so burnt without him noticing? But, even as he pondered that question, he already knew the answer: he'd been dreaming again. From a young age, he had been plagued by vivid dreams and, sometimes, at the most unexpected and unappreciated moments, they came to pass in the real world. Tonight's dream had been strange and vague: a heavy sense of foreboding, a flash of gold, and the image of a short boy with tri-colored hair and a happy face. It wasn't what he would normally consider one of his 'premonitions', but the foreboding clung to him even now.

A knock suddenly sounded at his door, startling him out of the odd feeling that was biting at his heels. Setting down the pan that he'd been trying to scrape his former dinner off of, Ryou went to answer the door.

A man in a gray uniform stood in the hall just outside his apartment, a heavy bag slung over one shoulder. "Are you Ryou Bakura?" he asked impatiently.

"Yes," Ryou answered, curiosity riding him now.

"Package," the man muttered as he shoved a box into the boy's hands, staying just long enough to collect a signature before promptly disappearing down the hallway.

"I wonder who it's from," Ryou pondered as he set the box down on his kitchen table. His question didn't go unanswered for long however; the package had been post-marked in Egypt, which meant it was from his father.

Curiously, he opened the box, marveling at how surprisingly heavy it felt for its relatively small size. Inside the package was a letter and another box, this one long and thin. He turned his attention to the letter first.

_Dear Ryou,_

_Happy birthday! _

God, tomorrow was his sixteenth birthday, wasn't it? He'd been so angry and despondent since his forced moving-out that he had completely forgotten.

_I hope this reaches you in time. I think you'll like it; I found it at a local market during one of my digs. It's quite impressive, although I doubt it's genuine, especially since the merchant said it had something to do with that card game you like. (Duel Monsters, right? See, your old man listens!) I know that Egypt has always been _my_ passion but I hope that, maybe one day, it can be yours too._

_Best Regards,_

_Father._

Best regards? Ryou clenched his teeth, forcing his anger down. It never failed to amaze him how his father could write such an impartial letter to his own flesh and blood.

Mood soured, but still curious, he turned his attention from the offensive letter and to the thin box. It was wholly unremarkable, no thicker than two or three inches, and about two hand spans high. In all honesty, he was expecting the present to be a book, as that seemed to be the traditional birthday present his father would give him. Opening the package revealed something that couldn't have been farther from a book. Smooth, rounded gold glittered in the dim lighting of his apartment, shining like a lost treasure. There on a protective bed of cotton and gauze was a pendant of some sort—at least, he was assuming it was pendant since it seemed to have a knob on top specifically designed to string a rope through. It was the most curious pendant he'd ever seen though—a golden ring, about the same size as his spread out hand, with a decorated pyramid in the center, and five smooth cones hanging from the perimeter of the ring.

Ryou wasn't really one for jewelry, seeing as it usually just gave other people extra opportunity to make fun of him, but he had to admit that something about this strange ring called to him. Impulsively, he searched through the apartment until he found a long piece of twine, threaded it through the knob at the top of the ring, and slung the makeshift necklace over his head. A heavy weight settled over his chest as the ring jangled quietly. Something struck him then, an incongruent sense of familiarity, as though he had done this before, a thousand times over. Shaking the feeling off, he made his way to the hall mirror, curious to see how the ring looked on him.

The reflection that greeted Ryou was familiar, yet somehow different—like a picture he'd seen hundreds of times, only now it was crooked. The ring hung heavily from his neck, resting over his sternum, and while he was entranced by that dimly glittering gold, he could have sworn that, for just a second, his vision had split into double. Rising out of the shadows had been a specter, a phantom with his face.

Ryou jerked away from the mirror, a hand pressing over the ring. Something eerie passed through him then, a strange sense of _extra_. He reeled for a moment, whipping his hand off the ring as it became hot to the touch. Panicked, unbalanced, he jerked the chord off his neck, resting the ring on a nearby table before turning his back to the object.

He was being fanciful tonight, he thought to himself. That was all, nothing more; he hadn't really seen or sensed anything, and the ring was just an abnormally large piece of jewelry.

But he was still shaking, and the feeling of _extra_ would not stop plaguing him.

* * *

He dreamt that night, uncomfortable dreams of darkness and struggle. In those dreams a voice whispered to him, quiet and low—a deep voice that spoke to him in words Ryou couldn't understand. There was something interesting in those sibilant tones, a hint of adventures and pleasures unknown. And when he was finally pulled from his dreams by the sound of his alarm, the whispers continued.

* * *

A/N: That was a little on the side of shortness, but it really is just an introduction. The next chapter should be much longer.

Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh! or anything related to it, nor do I own Muse's Absolution.


	2. Apocalypse Please

Chapter Two: Apocalypse Please.

"_Declare this an emergency,_

_Come on and spread a sense of urgency."_

Pale morning light filtered into Ryou's room, glinting across his mirror until he had to squint to see his own reflection. He was a study in sliver and blue—his hair fell in uneven waves down his back, standing out starkly against his dark blue uniform, his skin looked bleached of all color, and his eyes shown like clear pools of the deepest water—yet… squinting as he was, Ryou could almost swear that he looked _different_. Where normally his face was round and boyish, he now seemed sharp and angular, his hair was wild, and his eyes were mischievous and calculating. But, in the blink of an eye, those qualities were gone—merely a trick of the sun and his ever growing nerves.

He'd been living in Domino for a week now, but today would be his first day at the new school. It seemed a little cosmically cruel that he would be faced with the stress of returning to high school on his birthday, of all days. He would have no one to celebrate with, no one to care that he was another year older.

Slowly, burdened by his melancholy, Ryou turned from his mirror, making his way to the kitchen for a quick breakfast. He never made it that far though. Barely a step outside of his room, and his eyes were immediately snagged by the gift his father had given him. Caught in the undiluted light from the open windows, the golden ring seemed to glow with the radiance of a fire.

He hadn't forgotten what had happened the night before, how he had felt and seen things that couldn't have been there while he'd worn the ring. Even now, hours later, his nerves were still being grated by a misplaced sense of _extra_. But, somehow, shining so brilliantly, the ring beckoned him and, at the back of his mind, the dark whispers from his dreams grew louder and more insistent. It spoke in words that were meaningless to him, maybe not even words at all, but its desire was clear—it wanted the ring.

Ryou reached for the pendant, but hesitated before his fingers brushed against the beautiful gold. He had long ago learned to accept that there were things about him that weren't normal—his appearance, his unexplained attraction to luxury, and his premonitions—but _this_ was beyond even his scope. He was hearing a voice now, a voice he knew had to be in his mind—and he was going to listen to its coaxing? He'd already been frightened by the ring once, would he really subject himself to that again because his imagination asked him to? He shook his head and backed away from the hall table, ignoring the voice when it began to rebuke him.

"It's just stress," he reassured himself, turning from the ring. "I'm just—"

_**Don't,**_ the ghostly voice whispered, the word mangled until it was almost unrecognizable as Japanese. _**Don't leave it**_, the voice stressed. But it seemed to have run out of words Ryou could understand, because it lapsed back into its strange language, letting loose a barrage of urgent, unintelligible sounds.

Ryou dashed to his kitchen, eager to get away but, unsurprisingly, the voice continued on, growing louder as each minute passed. By the time he finished breakfast, the silver-haired boy felt as though someone was screaming into his ear. Desperate, panicked, he set aside all his doubts and donned the ring once more. The feeling of _extra_ intensified—as though thousands of nerves awakened in places he hadn't known he could feel—but the voice quieted back down to the dull murmur it had once been.

"Well this is a perfect way to start my new school life," he growled sarcastically, quickly slipping his shoes on. "I'm obviously having a psychotic breakdown in celebration."

* * *

Ryou felt his panic swell to new heights when the homeroom teacher introduced him to his new class. He hated this, hated standing in front of everyone like some kind of spectacle for them to gawk at; he knew what he looked like to them: a freak. A blue-eyed albino with a face androgynous enough to be considered feminine. He was weak and quiet, submissive, and others took advantage of that.

Anger began to simmer in his blood, anger at himself and his would-be bullies. It might have eventually turned into hatred if his eyes hadn't caught on a boy toward the back of the class—a boy with wild, tri-colored hair and a smiling face. The boy he'd dreamt about.

With his curiosity peaked, Ryou went to sit at his new desk, sneaking a glance at the boy every now and again. What had his dream been trying to tell him about this person? The question ate away at him until it was all he could think about, and he began to covet the impending free period. But the minutes ticked by at a painfully slow rate, building up a restlessness in him until, what felt like a small eternity later, it was finally time for the first break-period.

From one moment to the next, however, he found himself instantly and uncomfortably surrounded. His new classmates closed in around him, forming a living wall of flesh. Panic crept slowly through his mind once again—if there was one thing he hated more than being bullied, it was having his exits cut off. His father had often said it was simply claustrophobia, but Ryou disagreed; tight and small spaces had never bothered him, so long as he knew how to get out of them, but the moment his escape routes were blocked, a cold fear would begin to eat away at him.

**Don't**, the voice that only he could hear suddenly instructed. It had no more wise words that he could understand to calm his rising terror, but it spoke to him to in hushed tones, like a trainer to a spooked animal. Given enough time, it probably would have broken through the inane babble and rapid-fire questions of his classmates, but something curious happened. The tri-color haired boy squeezed through the crowd of people, and the minute he came fully in view, the voice fell silent for the first time in hours.

The students slowly began to disperse from the unresponsive new kid, leaving room for their shortest classmate and his friends. "Hello," the cheerful, violet-eyed boy greeted. "I'm Yugi, and these are my friends Jonouchi," he motioned to the rough looking blond, then the sweet-faced brunette girl, "this is Anzu, and that's Honda," he finished, pointing to his remaining companion.

"Pleased to meet you," Ryou finally found his voice. "I'm Ryou, although I suppose you already gathered that."

Yugi nodded, laughing a little. "You must be all turned around today," he sympathized.

_You have no idea_, Ryou thought to himself, but merely smiled to his sudden companions.

"Well, here's something to take your mind off of the first-day jitters for a while," the blond cut in. He clapped the shorter boy on the shoulder, "Yugi here is too shy to ask on his own, but he was wondering if you like games."

"Jonouchi," Yugi chastised, clutching something around his neck closely. Between his fingers a hint of gold glimmered.

The voice in Ryou's mind stayed silent, but he still felt its presence, as though it were holding its breath in anticipation.

"I like games very much," Ryou answered after a thoughtful pause, "especially tabletop and role-playing games." That set off a spark of chatter through the assembled teens that lasted most of the break-period, comparing and contrasting their favorite games. In that moment Ryou knew he had found kindred spirits, people who enjoyed the thrill of a good challenge and wouldn't think him odd for the types of games he favored. For once, it finally felt as though he had friends who, if they didn't completely understand him, would accept him nonetheless. Still, it wasn't until a few minutes before the break-period was over that he worked up the courage to ask Yugi about the object he was still tightly gripping.

"This?" the boy asked, finally holding it up to the light. It was a solid, heavy object made of gold, shaped like an upside-down pyramid, with the Eye of Horus gracing one side. "This is my puzzle," he answered fondly. And now that Ryou knew what to look for, he could see the spidering cracks where all the pieces joined together. "It took me eight years to put it together, but it was worth it."

The puzzle bore such a striking resemblance to Ryou's ring that it couldn't have been coincidence. Was this what his dream had been trying to tell him? "May I see it for a moment?" he asked curiously. "My father is an Egyptologist, and he found something quite similar recently."

"Your father is an Egyptologist?" Yugi asked eagerly as he carefully handed his puzzle over. "That must be really interesting!"

_Maybe_, Ryou thought to himself, _but not when the price of knowledge is paid at the expense of your family._ Shaking off the melancholy, he grasped the golden puzzle, but the moment his fingers brushed its smooth surface, he nearly doubled over in pain. It felt as though a hand had plunged through his chest to grip the very heart of him.

"Are you alright, Ryou?" his new friends rushed to ask.

His senses reeled, and for one very bizarre moment it felt like there were two of him. However, the vertigo dissipated quickly, leaving him shaken but fine, the puzzle still in his hands. "It's nothing," he threw off his remaining unease and turned his attention back to the artifact in his midst. "Where did you get this?"

"I live in a game store," Yugi replied, worry still lurking in his eyes even as he warmed up to the subject. "It was hidden on one of the back shelves, collecting dust, so I thought I would put it together. I don't know how my grandpa got a hold of it—he's the one who runs the game store, by the way—but I was told that the puzzle was found in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh."

"That's strange," Ryou responded, handing the small pyramid back to Yugi, "because it looks so similar to my pendant, but my father said he found it in a market." Quickly, he hooked one finger under the chord around his neck, drawing it up until the golden ring slipped out from under his uniform jacket.

The four teens marveled over the object for a moment, comparing it to the puzzle. Curiosity passed over all of them, save for Yugi whose eyes grew cloudy and concerned. Ryou was about to ask the shorter boy what was wrong, but the break-period was over, class was starting once more.

The rest of the day continued on as the morning had, slow and tedious, and there never seemed to be enough time to ask Yugi what was suddenly bothering him. As a matter of fact, he didn't have the opportunity to speak with Yugi alone until school was let out and everyone began to walk home. By some stroke of luck or fate, they lived close enough together that they both took the same path to and from school, whereas Anzu, Jonouchi, and Honda all lived in the opposite direction.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of the others," Yugi suddenly broke their silence, beating Ryou to the conversation, "but I wanted to ask you something about that ring." His violet eyes roamed over the rounded gold for a moment. "Has anything…" he hesitated, as though looking for the right words, "…_weird_ happened to you or around you since you started wearing it?"

"Weird?" Ryou repeated, thinking of the strange feelings the ring had given him, not to mention the voice that had plagued him that morning.

"Well," the shorter boy scuffed at the ground with his shoe, not meeting the albino's eyes, "things like constantly losing track of time, or having long lapses in your memory." He looked up at his taller companion then, his violet eyes shining with uncertainty. "I've always considered the puzzle to be my treasure, but sometimes I get a weird feeling from it, like I'm caught in a strong tide and I can't fight it."

The white-haired boy blinked. So he hadn't imagined the eeriness that seemed to surround his birthday present. "I only just received the ring last night, so I really couldn't say anything about memory problems," he finally replied. "But it does give off a curious feeling, like an aura of familiarity… and something strange and dark that I can't put any words to, much like your own feeling." Should he bring up the voice? Yugi had taken a great leap of faith in opening up about how the puzzle was affecting his life, could Ryou do the same?

"Something else is on your mind," Yugi guessed astutely. "What is it?"

Ryou took a deep breath and decided to plunge in headfirst. "I don't say this lightly, so please take me seriously," he hedged. "I was given the ring last night, and when I put it on it gave me an uncomfortable feeling—like there was a new part of me that wasn't supposed to be there—so I took it off right away. But that night I dreamt of a voice, and when I woke up that voice was with me still, murmuring for hours on end, trying to influence me with words I couldn't understand." He snuck a peak at the other boy through the hazy whiteness of his lowered bangs. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No," Yugi shook his head slowly. "I don't think that's crazy at all. Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—I think I can hear a voice calling from deep inside myself; only it doesn't speak in words at all, it just lets me know it's there."

Ryou took a moment to digest that, coming to a stop a stop in front of his apartment building. "Mine seemed to talk constantly; in fact, it didn't stop at all until—" Pain gripped his chest again, squeezing the air from his lungs until he was left coughing.

Yugi's eyes widened in alarm. "_Ryou_?" he asked urgently. "What's wrong?"

His lung filled with sweet air after a minute, but they felt bruised now, as though they had to labor to do something that came naturally. "I don't know," he answered truthfully. He coughed a few more times, masking a groan when the low voice began to whisper again, but this time, he caught sounds that made sense to him. That strange tongue filled his mind, rumbling words that were just on the edge of his understanding.

"Ryou?" Yugi asked again.

The voice turned unseen eyes to the short teen, and Ryou panicked. Something in his gut told him to get away from Yugi. "I should probably rest or something," he gestured vaguely to the apartment complex behind him. "I'll see you around," he added quickly, jogging away before Yugi could say anything.

**I've finally found it**, the voice crowed as Ryou burst through his front door. **The Sennen Puzzle**, it breathed in awe.

"Shut up!" the blue-eyed boy snapped. "You were quiet for most of the school day, why'd you have to start talking again?"

**I don't play to your whims, child**, it snorted amusedly.

"Well, maybe you should, seeing as you're in _my_ head!" Ryou countered heatedly, pacing his living room floor.

**You understand me now?** It sounded wondering at first, then let out a wicked laugh. **That certainly makes things easier.**

"Great, now I'm having a _conversation_ with the voice in my head," Ryou grumbled to himself. "But I suppose I'll play along. What are you talking about?"

The air rippled for a moment, like a heat-induced mirage of water, and out of those ripples emerged a figure. It flickered like a dying star, brightly flashing in and out of existence, but it was enough for Ryou to clearly see what he was facing. The figure was a boy, taller than him by nearly a head, but probably not much older than he was. He had short, silver hair that stood out in snowy contrast to his darkly tanned skin, and eyes so darkly blue they were nearly black. The boy wore a simple wrap of cloth around his waist, and a large red coat that seemed designed to hide his tightly muscled form and the shadowy copy it possessed of Ryou's ring. He was sketchy-looking, at best; danger tinged his aura, and a hint of insanity played around his eyes.

"Who are you?" Ryou asked, taking an involuntary step back.

The boy reached out a flickering, ghostly hand until he was nearly cupping the bewildered teen's face. **Look at what three thousand years have done to us**, he spoke, but never moved his lips. **We're weak, accommodating, and unambitious.** A calculating smile twisted his face. **But don't worry; I know the perfect cure for that.**

Ryou backed up, panicking. "What are you talking about?"

**There's that question again.** The boy—ghost?—cocked his head to the side, contemplating. **Your first answer is: it makes things easier, because I wouldn't have bothered appearing before you if you couldn't understand me; it wouldn't have been a risk worth taking. Your second answer is: reincarnation.**

Ryou finally hit the back of his sofa, stumbling until he fell onto the plush cushions. "This," he faltered, nervously clutching at the ring around his neck. "This is too much to take in. What are you, why are you here, and what the hell do you mean by reincarnation?"

**All in good time**, he tsked, drawing closer until he was leaning over the couch, looming above Ryou. **First we have to do something about this… softness of yours. It's hardly befitting.**

"Stay away from me," the shorter teen vaulted off the sofa, dashing across the room.

**You needn't worry**, the ghost purred, mischief shining in his dark eyes. **Soon enough, you'll realize how much more fun my way is.**

Ryou seized hold of a lamp, brandishing it like a sword. "I'm warning you—"

The ghost laughed deeply, manically. **Relax, child, I won't hurt you. But, perhaps, if you fear me so deeply, it would be best if you just sat this one out.** He swayed for a moment, as though dancing while he thought it over. **Yes, that would be for the best. **

A sudden lethargy swept through the smaller boy, clouding his senses completely. The last thing he heard before darkness swallowed him was the enchanting whisper of the strange boy that had come from nowhere.

**Sleep, Ryou Bakura, and dream of riches far beyond your grasp.**

* * *

A/N: I know a bunch of you probably want to tell me that Ryou has brown eyes—I disagree. In season zero they were green, and in a few color spreads from the manga they were blue. I think blue fits him the best, so that's what I'm sticking with.

Also, I'm obviously playing around with the mythos. I understand why the yamis appear like their hikaris when they possess their counterparts' body, but I have never understood why they don't look like their proper Egyptian selves when they appear in ghost-form. It doesn't make any sense—I mean, they're essentially ghosts, right? Why would they not appear in death as they had in life?

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	3. Time Is Running Out

Chapter Three: Time Is Running Out.

"_I wanted freedom, bound and restricted  
I tried to give you up, but I'm addicted.  
Now that you know I'm trapped, sense of elation,  
You'd never dream of breaking this fixation."_

He often liked to think that there was no explainable reason he was attracted to wealth but, in truth, he knew the reason all too well; it had been the sore point that had finally driven a permanent wedge between Ryou and his father. Instead of attention, the eldest Bakura had lavished his son with gifts, until Ryou's young mind had begun to confuse luxury with love. As a child, he had spent hours surrounded by presents from his father, falling deeper and deeper into the enchantment of what he had thought was love; it wasn't until many years later that he realized it was greed. He knew the difference between gifts and true adoration now, of course, but he still got that feeling deep in his soul—a warm combination of comfort, joy, and affection—whenever he was given something expensive. Which was exactly why, on his sixteenth birthday, he was facing a major dilemma.

Upon awakening from his forced slumber, Ryou came to face the very last thing he wanted to see. Clean-cut precious stones littered his living room coffee table, each one a different color that seemed to smolder in the dying light of the setting sun. Behind the stones, wrapped in coils like sleeping snakes, were small piles of silver bracelets and necklaces. And standing off to the side, looking quiet pleased with himself, was the ghostly, tanned stranger.

"What did—" Ryou shook his head, suddenly dizzy. His body felt like it had run a marathon, muscles sore and aching. "What did you do?"

The taller boy crouched down on the other side of the low table, spread his arms wide, and gave Ryou a wicked grin. "I got these for you," he replied, truly speaking for the first time. His tone was dark and velvety, yet there was a gruffness to it that was just as ominous as it was intriguing. It was insanity, reason, and seduction all wrapped up into one brilliant voice.

Ryou shivered, not looking at the spoils spread out before him. Who was this boy? He seemed so familiar, yet there was a brazenness about him that Ryou knew he had never encountered before. "I don't want them," he replied, his voice tight as he fought the pull of luxury.

The boy's smile widened. "Are you sure?" he purred. "Because you look awfully tempted to me." He held out a dark ruby the size of a large coin. "Take it," he coaxed quietly, "it's a _gift_."

Ryou's eyes zeroed in on the jewel. The weak light bounced around the well-cut stone, making it glow a fiery crimson. In that moment, as his gaze fixated on that one ruby, he felt the old compulsion call out to him. From the depths of his soul and the darkest corners of his mind, he felt the siren song of greed. "I can't," he denied quietly, but didn't look away.

"Why not?" the other asked. "They're yours. Consider it a token of my _affection_."

Distantly, the younger boy wondered how this tanned stranger knew exactly what buttons to push. "I…" he hesitated, slowly reaching out a shaky hand.

"It was the very best I could find," the dark boy told him, a strange glint in his eye. "The purest silver and the finest jewels, just for you."

Even as he berated himself for being a fool, even as he knew it was wrong, Ryou's fingers closed around the ruby, briefly brushing the cold static of the other boy's ghostly hand.

The boy's grin turned predatory. "It feels wonderful, doesn't it? It's such a simple lust to quench, and yet it's the most rewarding."

Ryou finally looked away from the gem in his hand, but his gaze got caught on the table where a prince's ransom spread out before him. "I feel—" he cut himself off, ashamed at what he'd almost admitted.

"Loved?" the ghost guessed knowingly. "Like you'll never have to suffer being alone, so long as you have that flash and sparkle for companionship?" He toyed with a stray sapphire as he watched the other like a hawk, then laughed a little. "I know the feeling. It's like a warm spring of water on a cold night, or the embrace of someone who cares." He shook his head, jostling his short silver locks. "People will tell you that wealth is indifferent, that treasure doesn't care who its master is, but they're wrong. Treasure always glitters for the hand that takes care of it, doesn't it?" He sighed contentedly. "Luxury is the purest form of love there is."

Ryou swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. It was happening again, he was falling into that personal abyss. Was he so starved for attention that he would let himself be hypnotized and ruled by gifts once more? "I can't," he answered himself aloud, carefully setting down the ruby. "I can't do this anymore; I promised myself I wouldn't."

"Oh?" the tanned boy cocked his head. "You love it, though, don't you?" His predatory look came back, replacing the lazy contentment that had been there a moment before. "Or is it a different sort of affection you're after?" He reached out a hand then, brushing his ghostly fingers down the smaller boy's jaw and across his throat.

Ryou jerked away instinctively, jostling the table as he scrambled backward; he had barely felt the caress at all, but his skin had jumped to eager attention at the slight touch. He had been alone for far too long. "Who are you?" he asked in a pinched tone, standing abruptly. "What do you want with me?"

"Who am I?" the other repeated. "There are so many ways I could answer that: I am the spirit of the Sennen Ring, the eternal Tomb Robber, and a dark reflection of your soul." He sighed at the other's confused look. "I'm a soul trapped within the Sennen Ring," he pointed a tanned finger at the golden pendant in question. "In life, I was a Tomb Robber and, within the flow of time, I'm a darker incarnation of you—or you're a lighter incarnation of me." The boy stood then, moving stealthily until he was mere inches from his counterpart. "I thought you were going to be just another boring host until I felt your soul, felt that familiar touch of unanswered desires."

"I don't understand," Ryou interjected, backing away from the stranger until his shoulders hit a wall.

"Three thousand years ago, I died," the boy murmured, drawing close enough to trap the other. "But my soul was bound within the Sennen Ring, so when it was time to be reincarnated the body was free but the soul had to be duplicated." His hand brushed the side of Ryou's face again. "In a different time, in a different place, I might have been more like you, or you might have been more like me. We're copies of each other, reflected through different mirrors—two souls, but the same person." His fingers wandered the plane of pale skin before him; though his touch wasn't solid, it was still tangible. "As to what I want with you… I don't think you can understand what it's like being passed from host to host—each one more ill-fitting than the last—before finally being given _my_ body again. There might be three thousand years worth of differences between us, but you still _feel_ better than anyone else has."

"Get away from me," Ryou panicked, trying to knock the ghostly body off of him.

"I don't think you understand," the tanned boy repeated. "Finding you, being able to talk to you thanks to the resonance of the Sennen Puzzle, is the best gift I've been given in millennia." His wicked smile turned dark, a hint of pointed fangs pulling at his lips. "You're a treasure to me, and I've never been one to let treasure go."

Over the course of his short sixteen years, Ryou's life had taken a lot of unexpected turns, but this twist was beyond anything he could have imagined. It wasn't that he didn't believe in ghosts—he did—but he had never truthfully believed in reincarnation, or that the same soul could present itself in two entirely different manners. More disturbing than that, his past self—and there were enough visual similarities between them that he was willing to believe what the spirit had told him—was completely amoral. There was a smoothness to him, an errant sense of refinement, but it couldn't even begin to mask his unprincipled attitude. After all, it was perfectly natural for a teenage boy to satisfy his own sexual desires, but to contemplate the quenching of that lust while in two separate bodies had to be the ultimate expression of narcissism. And the thought was appealing enough to terrify him.

In some ways, Ryou had always known that he was only lily-white on the surface, that beneath his skin he wasn't anywhere near as pure or noble as he presented himself to be. There was a dark restlessness that had plagued his soul for years, tempting him into complete abandonment, into wildness, but he had always been able to fight off its forceful call before. Now, that darkness had been given a form, and its temptations were much harder to resist. The tanned stranger spoke in words that were dripping with wrongness, yet they drew Ryou in, teased and seduced him, leaving him intrigued and horrified.

He could have material love, he could have companionship, and the spirit had not asked for anything in return. Yet. But Ryou knew he would—this act, it was just the enticement, a way to snare his compliance before the spirit went after what it truly wanted. He would become the ghost's accomplice, willing to turn a blind eye to anything the other did so long as the price of his silence was high enough to suppress his conscience; he would be no better than a slave or a puppet, dancing to his master's whims.

Making a split-second decision, his fingers jerked at the cord around his neck, intending to take the ring off. If the spirit was bound to the object, perhaps he wouldn't be able to haunt Ryou if the ring wasn't anywhere near him.

But his hand was immediately caught in a harsh grip as the tanned boy's body pressed closer, consuming what little space had existed between them, trapping the ring between their bodies. "_Don't_," he hissed harshly; his eyes narrowed dangerously, making the pale scar that ran under his eye and down his cheek stand out. "Don't you _dare_ try to take it off!" He shifted, fully pinning the smaller boy against the wall. "I bring you _silver_ and precious jewels, and this is how you thank me?" he rasped in Ryou's ear. A dark laugh bubbled up from between his lips. "I supposed three thousand years wasn't enough time to teach us any manners."

"Get off of me," Ryou snapped, struggling. It was unsettling to be pinned under the other boy. The spirit's body exerted pressure, it had a presence, but it felt as though a wall of static was keeping him in place, rather than another person.

"I can see I'm going to have to use a much firmer hand with you than I had anticipated," the ghost whispered to him. "Perhaps we're not as different as I had thought," he added, satisfaction lacing his voice. "The Sennen Ring doesn't come off, Ryou," he commanded lowly. "Whether you're bathing, eating, or sleeping, you will wear that Ring."

"And if I don't?" Ryou rebelled, trying to inch his head away from the lips that were nearly teasing the sensitive shell of his ear.

"The consequences are more painful than you can guess," he murmured. "The Ring's design has a practical side to it, after all."

The golden pendant moved then, startling Ryou. The five cones that he had at first admired slowly began to press against his chest, piercing through his shirt to push against his skin threateningly. His eyes widened in alarm; would the spirit really be cruel enough to anchor himself into Ryou in such a violent way? Only moments ago, he had called the pale boy a treasure.

"Some treasures need to be altered before they can truly shine," the tanned boy said, seemingly reading Ryou's thoughts.

The cones pressed tighter, until Ryou was sure that five small wells of blood were dotting his skin. Wincing in pain, he stopped struggling. The odds were stacked against him; he would have to play along with the spirit for now.

"I don't have to be cruel," his dark reflection sighed, nuzzling the side of his head. "I can be as nice as you let me. If you make any effort to adjust to the situation, I'll give you whatever you want, whatever you need. Those jewels were just the beginning." His lips brushed a pale ear.

Ryou shivered. There was that offer again, a chance to sate his greed with nothing asked for in return. But he knew it was a trap, he knew the spirit would ask for something eventually.

"Your choice isn't that hard," the ghost purred. "Something you love versus something unimaginably painful." He laughed, the sound rumbling through both their bodies. "We both know which one you're going to choose in the end."

* * *

Ryou sat on his bed, toying with an emerald. The harsh light of his desk lamp played across the well-cut stone, making some planes shine a brilliant green and others shine a dull black. It was enchanting, mesmerizing, and he found himself unable to look away. This was exactly why he'd tried so hard to resist the spirit earlier; once he completely gave in to his greed, he knew there was no saving him. He would have twinges of a guilty conscience for whatever was to come, but now that he had accepted the gift it would be nearly impossible to pull away.

His pale eyes followed the light as it glinted off his emerald, but his thoughts turned inward. The spirit had left him alone after giving Ryou his threatening ultimatum, disappearing with a suddenness that was disturbing. Not for the first time, Ryou had to wonder if he was merely imagining the other boy, but the jewels and the silver were a painful argument against that idea. If he was imagining the spirit, then he would have had to go out and procure his 'gift' on his own, which was unlikely. But it was still hard to wrap his mind around the thought that he was being haunted by a past incarnation of himself.

He shivered, his thoughts turning dark. The tanned stranger was a tempting mirror to look into. He was strong and lean, dangerous but enticing, and Ryou wasn't nearly as appalled at the thought of a physical relationship with the spirit as he should have been. It was wrong that they were the same person, but they were different _enough_ to spark an interest. The fact that they were both male seemed irrelevant; Ryou had never been particularly interested in gender roles—if a man desired another man, it was no one else's business. He did worry that this attraction was outside the realm of his usual desires, though. From a young age, he had known that he had fairly relaxed views in terms of his own sexual preferences, but he'd always been attracted to people who were smaller than him, cuter than him—probably in an effort to make himself feel less girly than he knew he often appeared. The spirit was bigger, stronger, and more commanding than he was, but he'd still felt that electric thrill at the other's brief touch. Even now, his body hummed where the spirit had pressed against him.

"No," he grunted to himself, finally looking away from the emerald. "Stop thinking about it." He would sleep for now and hopefully in the morning, in the light of a new day, his desires would lose their darkness.

But even in his sleep, the spirit haunted him.

A hallway spread across Ryou's dream, with two doors on either side, the ghost leaning casually against a wall. Only, here he didn't look like a ghost; his form had acquired a worrying solidness. If his flickering, ethereal presence had been disturbing, this too-human, living body was downright threatening.

"What's going on?" Ryou groaned, wishing for some sort of reprieve from the spirit. How was he ever supposed to organize his thoughts if he was being constantly thrown off balance? "Where are we?"

"Your body is sleeping," the tanned boy answered nonchalantly. "And this is a bridge between our souls, forged by the Sennen Ring. But enough of that," he shook his head, moving away from the wall. "We have more important things to contemplate."

Ryou sat on the floor tiredly. "Are you ever going to leave me alone?"

The spirit ignored his question, crouching down until they were facing each other eye to eye. "I need a name," he told the smaller boy. "It's oddly fitting that you have more than one, seeing as there are two of us now." He smiled as the joy of acquisition burned in his blue gaze. "Which name aren't you using?"

Ryou blinked. "Excuse me?"

The tanned boy cocked his head to the side. "You can't expect me to believe that you're using _both_ names," he responded critically. "You don't need two of them. I, on the other hand, have no name at all and since I _am_ you, only a little different, I figured I would take whichever name you weren't using."

"It doesn't work like that," Ryou shook his head. "Bakura is my family name—something to identify my house and bloodline—and Ryou is my given name—something for friends and family to call me," he explained. "I have to use both of them."

"That seems peculiarly excessive to me," the spirit raised a brow, "but I suppose it makes a small amount of sense in this ever-growing world of yours. Still, necessity breeds compromise; you're going to learn how to share."

"First you take my peace of mind, now you're taking one of my names—I can't wait to see what you take next," the pale boy grumbled darkly. After a moment, he responded, "Ryou is personal; it's _my_ name. Bakura, on the other hand, is a family name and, in some twisted way, I guess you're family."

"So I'm Bakura now, hm?" the spirit hummed. "I like the sound of that." He threw his arms wide, gesturing grandly. "Bakura, King of Thieves," he announced importantly. "You have to admit, it's got a certain ring to it."

King of Thieves? A horrible thought struck Ryou at the other boy's words, and a suspicion began to boil deep in his gut. "Where did you get those jewels?"

Bakura grinned widely, but didn't answer.

"Oh god," Ryou groaned, his head slumping into his hands.

"You really needn't worry," the thief soothed, laying a warm hand on his shoulder. "No one will be able to tell it was you."

Ryou's head shot up, his eyes rounded in horror. "What?" he snapped instantly.

"Well," Bakura replied, drumming his fingers on the pale boy's shoulder, "much like with the names, I don't have a body of my own—so I borrowed yours."

"My life is over," Ryou whispered to himself. "I'll be locked in a jail cell by morning."

Bakura rolled his eyes at the smaller boy's dramatics. "I was unfailingly careful about the whole thing," he said plainly. "So as long as you don't go shouting it from the rooftops, there's no reason anyone should connect you to the robbery."

"I don't have that kind of luck," Ryou shook his head.

"You make your own luck," Bakura told him, a strange note lacing his voice, "and you take whatever risks are necessary."

The smaller boy frowned, saying nothing.

With a sigh, Bakura stood, turning to one of the doors. "Come with me," he commanded over his shoulder. "There's something I want you to see."

Curious now, Ryou stood and followed the ghost. The room on the other side of the door was like a great hall—a marble ceiling soared high above the stone floor, giant pillars supporting its heavy weight. Oil basins were liberally scattered throughout the room, burning hotly and casting their flickering light. From the murky shadows that lined the walls, something wavered, showing off hints of gold.

"This way," Bakura directed, leading the pale boy toward where he had seen the movement.

Once they drew close enough, the tanned ghost reached out a hand, pulling back a dark curtain to reveal another room. This room was much smaller in scale, but completely packed from wall to wall. A mountain of riches rose from the floor, claiming the room. Gold statuettes mingled with jewelry of the finest craftsmanship, bolts of delicate cloth peeked out from piles of precious stones, and endless scrolls littered beautiful furniture.

Ryou's eyes darted from left to right, unsure where to look, or which little treasure held his interest the most. Somewhere, deep in his soul, that misdirected love began to burn.

"The greater the risk," Bakura whispered in his ear from behind, "the greater the reward. Sometimes, you just have to chance it to get what you really want."

* * *

A/N: A lot of Bakura's dialog is heavy with innuendo—this was on purpose. When Viz and Shonen Jump translated the scene in the manga where Ryou and his Yami first meet, Bakura's lines ended up being so easily misconstrued that I still laugh when I think about it. As a tribute to that moment where B/R was perfectly canon, I've decided to write a lot of Bakura's lines after the same fashion.

Props go to Ergott for this story (because she instigated this whole thing, and I'm blatantly ripping off her style) and Metanaito-Sama (for all her help and encouragement).

Please review!

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. Time Is Running Out belongs to the band Muse. I am not making any money off of this story.


	4. Sing For Absolution

Chapter Four: Sing For Absolution.

"_There's nowhere left to hide, in no one to confide._

_The truth burns deep inside, and will never die."_

Ryou arrived to class just seconds before the teacher—his second day, and already he was beginning to look like a slacker. He carefully avoided Yugi's gaze as the lesson started; the shorter boy had been frowning, concern and puzzlement shining in his violet eyes. Ryou was grateful beyond words to have friends so soon after starting at a new school, but he'd be lying if he didn't say that Yugi's anxiety made him uneasy—he knew Yugi would want to hear more about the Sennen Ring, would want to know things that the paler boy wouldn't want to share.

Yesterday he had prayed that the break-period would come faster; today he prayed that it wouldn't come at all. But, inevitably, it did come, and he quickly found Yugi facing him from across his tiny wooden desk. "You seem different today," he said without preamble. "Edgier, less controlled than before."

**And there's the pot calling the kettle black**, Bakura laughed in his mind.

Ryou frowned, looking hard at Yugi. He seemed somehow taller, his hair was wilder, his eyes an aloof and angry red, and his voice was much more commanding than it had ever sounded. No one else seemed to notice the change, but Ryou saw it with unclouded eyes, and reeled at the implications. "You're not exactly the same yourself," he answered the new stranger before him. Did Yugi's puzzle house an ancient spirit as well?

**It does**, Bakura answered, **and quite an annoying one, at that.** He shrugged invisible shoulders, even as his eyes narrowed in thought. **He seems damaged though, like he doesn't know the difference between himself and little Yugi.**

_Why do you say that?_ Ryou asked, already breaking the one rule he'd set down for himself that day. He had promised that he wasn't going to talk to Bakura during school, lest it make anyone suspicious.

Bakura shrugged again. **Yesterday, Yugi said that he had lapses in his memory, which means that the spirit either hasn't revealed himself to the keeper of the puzzle yet, or he just doesn't realize that he's a completely different entity.**

The boy in question frowned, something painful flickering through his red eyes. "Different?" he whispered to himself. "I am different, aren't I?"

**Oh-ho**, the thief crowed merrily. **It seems he did know and he was just in denial.**

"You're not Yugi, are you?" Ryou asked quietly, pitching his voice low so that no one else would hear him.

He shook his head, blond bangs whipping wildly. "No, I am Yugi! Who else could I be?"

Bakura rolled his eyes. **Let me handle this**, he growled.

For a moment, as he felt that sense of _extra_ shift within him, Ryou panicked. He didn't want anyone else to know about Bakura. But, even as he thought that, his mind disconnected from his body—suddenly, he was floating at the back of his own mind, watching someone else control him. _Don't_, he pleaded.

**Relax**, Bakura soothed, turning his attention away from the troubled teen.

The red-eyed spirit seemed to notice the change from Ryou to Bakura instantly, his posture becoming defensive even as his eyes glittered with curiosity. "Who are you?" he asked quietly.

"The better question is: who are you?" Bakura smirked. "You have no idea, do you? Well, let me clue you in—you're not Yugi. Yugi is what happens to your soul after three thousand years." He leaned forward, blue eyes narrowing. "You are someone else entirely and, somewhere in that twisted soul of yours, you know it."

The other spirit shook his head once more, backing away slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Where do you go when the little one is in control?" Bakura pressed. "Why do you know so much about games and ancient Egypt? Why weren't you around before Yugi completed the Sennen Puzzle?"

"The Sennen Puzzle?" a strange note echoed through the red-eyed boy's voice as he gripped the object in question.

Bakura snorted. "Face it, your destiny is tied into something more far reaching than Yugi's daily life. There's a whole world of memories waiting for you, if you were just brave enough to face them."

A darkness passed through the other's eyes, a darkness that was tinged with rage.

"You know, this is hardly any fun if you don't remember," Bakura smirked, giving control back to Ryou.

Ryou felt dizzy to be so suddenly in command of his body once more, and abruptly faced with the anger of the red-eyed teen.

"He's a prick, whoever he is," the spirit said nastily, glaring at the albino before him.

As Bakura's manic laughter filled his mind, Ryou couldn't help but agree.

"Hey guys," Anzu interrupted, walking toward the pair with Honda and Jonouchi trailing after her. "Did you hear about this?" she asked, holding up the front page of a newspaper.

Ryou had been dreading this conversation for hours. He knew exactly what the paper said; the damned thing had greeted him that morning, nearly giving him a heart attack as he left for school. Bakura's robbery was the news on everyone's lips, and Ryou didn't want to talk about it. "Some jewels were stolen last night," he shrugged, wanting to get it over with quickly.

"How can you say that so nonchalantly, Ryou?" Anzu gaped. "Men just don't get it—this was a premier collection from one of the best jewelers in Domino!"

Ryou sank into his seat; he understood only too well, but it wasn't as though he could admit that.

"I'm more concerned with the thief than with what he stole," Honda cut in seriously.

"Yeah," Jonouchi added. "Anyone who can baffle the police as thoroughly as this guy has is obviously a master criminal."

**Well, what else would you expect from the King of Thieves?** Bakura asked smugly.

Ryou ignored him, an ominous feeling itching across his skin as he noticed the Other-Yugi's gaze narrow on him consideringly. "Maybe the jewels will be returned," the pale boy murmured.

**Let's not lie to ourselves**, Bakura laughed.** You know as well as I do that those jewels are never going to leave your possession.**

Guilt ate away at Ryou. In the hours since he'd been presented with his 'gift' he'd thought of a hundred ways he could return the stolen treasure, but he knew he wouldn't carry any of them out. The longer he waited, the harder it was to part with the beautiful gems. And some dark part of him—maybe Bakura—whispered that if the jewels could be so easily stolen, they belonged to whoever could claim them.

"Why would someone go through all the trouble of robbing a place, just to return everything they stole?" Jonouchi interrupted his thoughts.

"I don't know," Ryou shrugged stiffly. "Maybe the thief likes the thrill of the steal more than any of the stuff he takes."

**Or maybe he's after a greater prize entirely**, Bakura whispered.

Ryou frowned. _You can't buy my trust._

The ancient spirit chuckled darkly. **We'll see.**

Jonouchi noticed the pale boy's frown. "Is something wrong, Ryou?"

"Ah," Ryou's heart skipped a beat; he didn't want anyone's attention right now. "No," he finally answered after a moment, "it's just that this is more upsetting news than I think any of us realize." At the quizzical looks that greeted him, he explained, "Well, like you said, this thief was uncommonly skilled—and now that he's struck once, what's to stop him from striking again?" His blue gaze turned inward for a moment. "I'm less concerned with what he's already stolen, and more concerned with what he'll steal next."

* * *

It took most of the school day for Ryou to calm down, and for the real Yugi to regain control of himself. In fact, it wasn't until their shared walk home that either boy were in any shape to talk to one another.

Yugi had admitted earlier that he knew the Puzzle did strange things to him. Even if he knew nothing of the spirit housed within that Puzzle, Yugi would still be the most sympathetic person for Ryou to talk to about his Ring. It was a risk, of course—he had no idea how the shorter boy would react to the stolen jewels—but he had to tell _someone_ about Bakura. The secrets in his life were slowly building, one by one, until it felt like a great shadow was looming over his back, waiting to drown him at a moment's notice.

"How long have you had the Sennen Puzzle?" Ryou asked the other boy as they began their walk home.

Yugi cocked his head to the side, but smiled. "I completed it a couple of months ago, why?"

"And you said that ever since then, you noticed strange things happening in your life," Ryou hedged, not answering the smaller boy's question.

"Yes," Yugi's smile dimmed. "There seems to be a lot of things I can't remember anymore."

"Like most of today?" the albino offered. At Yugi's nod, he asked, "What do you think you're doing during those times you can't remember?"

The smaller boy looked stricken at the thought. "Tell me I didn't do anything awful!" he wailed, eyes wide.

"You didn't," Ryou soothed. "But you acted like a completely different person, you even looked a little different."

"And you think the Puzzle is causing me to do this?" Yugi asked.

The albino shook his head. "I think something lives inside the Puzzle, and whenever it wants to come out and play, it does so by possessing your body."

Yugi frowned. "Why would you say that?"

"Because I'm going through something similar with the Ring," Ryou explained, half expecting Bakura to start yelling at him. His darker incarnation remained suspiciously silent, however. "I know it's hard to believe, but there's a spirit that lives inside of the Ring, and because I wear the Ring, the spirit lives inside of me." He stumbled over his words, looking for the right way to describe what he was going through. "I couldn't understand him at first, but after a while he began to speak in words I knew." Why was that?

**When you touched Yugi's Puzzle, the Sennen Items resonated with each other for a moment, allowing me access to your knowledge of the world**, Bakura explained before falling silent once more.

Ryou ignored him. "He says I'm a reincarnation of him, that we're the same person separated by three thousand years."

A light was beginning to dawn in Yugi's violet eyes.

"He's says some of the most horrible things, Yugi, but they still make sense to me," the albino admitted with difficultly. "I know he's not a good person, but the longer I'm around him the more I begin to think that maybe _I'm_ not a good person either."

"Everyone's got a dark side, Ryou," Yugi replied, uncharacteristically serious. "I may not have known you for very long, but I _do_ know that you're a great person."

But Yugi didn't know about his secret shame, didn't know the depth of his darkness, and didn't know how easily his affection could be bought. The blue-eyed boy swallowed tightly, continuing on, "He said he was a Tomb Robber and—"

There was a hint of distrustful red eyes in Yugi's gaze, there and gone in the space of a second.

Ryou drew to a halt, closing his eyes in defeat. He couldn't face the scorn of the Other-Yugi, didn't want to lose the friendship he had with the real Yugi—or any of his other friends. In the end, his secrets were too big, too dangerous, and they would have to remain buried.

"And?" Yugi prompted, but his tone sounded strange—like an interlacing of two voices, both different but in perfect harmony.

"And this is where we part ways," Ryou said heavily, motioning to the apartment building in the distance. "I'll see you tomorrow," he added before dashing off.

**That's twice now that you've run from him**, Bakura observed. **Do you fear little Yugi?**

"The only thing I fear is losing his friendship," Ryou replied as he unlocked his door.

Bakura snorted. **What good are friends that you must lie to?**

"I wouldn't dare tell them the truth," the pale boy exclaimed. "They'd leave me in an instant."

**Then they aren't really your friends, are they?** Bakura purred silkily. **Besides, you've got me; what more do you need?**

Ryou walked through his apartment, quickly stripping out of his school uniform to change into more casual clothes. "I can't exactly confide in you about the hell _you're_ putting me through," he grumbled, pulling his hair through the collar of a soft t-shirt.

Bakura's mental eyes narrowed. **Well, it's not like you can confide in them, either.**

"I know," Ryou sighed wearily, "but I don't want to be alone—even if that means I have to pretend to be a better person, to lie about everything."

His pale limbs grew suddenly heavy as a fog descended over his mind. As Ryou felt himself sink to the floor, his soul flew to another place—the strange hallway from his dreams. And just like last time, the tanned spirit was leaning against a wall, waiting for him.

"How can you be alone when there are two of us?" Bakura asked, quirking a silver eyebrow.

Ryou tried to turn away from the spirit, but he was gripped by a dizzying vertigo after having switched locations so quickly.

Bakura reached his side in the blink of an eye, wrapping a tanned hand around a pale wrist. "You'll never be alone again," he continued, "neither of us will. And what's more," his voice dropped to a velvet purr, "you never have to pretend with me. You're free to be yourself."

No one had offered him that promise, save his sister. How could Bakura be such a smooth blend of everything Ryou feared and desired?

Bakura's hand roamed away from Ryou's wrist, traveling upward to rest on a shoulder as the spirit drew closer to the other boy. "Few people will ever offer you that opportunity. Your _friends_," he snorted at the word, "they'll have expectations of you—how they'll want you to talk, act, even dress—and you'll never quite manage to catch their approval, but you'll continue to chase after it." His other hand moved to trail curious fingers over the pale boy's cheek. "I, conversely, expressed my approval from the very beginning. I know how you think, how you feel, I know your darkest secrets, and I accept all of it, all of you." His fingers began to draw light circles over the boy's skin. "There are parts of yourself that you hardly even comprehend, and I revel in them when others would abandon you."

Ryou felt every word as though they were being hammered into his soul, each sentence tearing him away from his friends and throwing him closer to the thief. Approval was such a tricky concept at his age; he wanted other people to like him, but at what cost? Could he really lie about himself to his friends, when there was someone else waiting with open arms for the real him?

The careful touches to the smaller boy's face drifted lower, until the tanned fingers were tucking under his chin, forcing crystal-blue eyes to gaze into eyes of the bluest midnight. "In the end," Bakura murmured, "I'll always know you better than anyone else ever could." His face lowered until their foreheads were touching. "Why fight that?" he whispered against the pale boy's lips.

There was such a small space between them, less than an inch—but that tiny inch held so many promises. Ryou closed the distance, pressing his lips to Bakura's. His reasoning was cloudy and vague, an action driven more by instinct than thought. In a moment of instability and turmoil, the tanned spirit had suddenly presented himself as an anchor to hold on to, and Ryou was desperate. But Bakura didn't respond for a moment, enough time for Ryou to begin doubting his decision. He started to pull away.

Tanned hands gripped his face, bringing him back. The kiss was different this time, fiercer and more intimate. Bakura's lips worked over his own, filling him with a lazy heat. Devilish little fangs nibbled at his lips until he gasped, opening his mouth for Bakura's invading tongue.

Ryou had kissed his fair share of girls over the years, and even a few boys, but those embraces had never felt quite right. Others had spoken of a soul igniting passion and a lust that could override common sense, but he had never experienced it himself.

Until now.

As Bakura's tongue tangled with his own, Ryou tasted the passion that he'd been denied. It went deeper than his lust for wealth, deeper than a simple desire to be touched—this was the sort of hunger that would burn through his blood, that would burn him, until it was satisfied. True to what he had heard so many times before, it felt as though his soul was on fire, pure desperation lacing his needy moans.

Bakura, for his part, did everything he could to feed that fire. His hands stroked the pale boy—first his face, then along his throat, slipping lower each second, until he was pulling off Ryou's shirt. The kiss was broken as the garment was thrown off, and Bakura enjoyed the sight before him. Ryou could only imagine what he looked like to the other—pale and disheveled, heat staining his cheeks as he panted for air. Whatever the tanned spirit saw, it pleased him. With lust shining in his dark eyes, he lowered his head to the other boy's neck, nipping and sucking as his mouth danced along the smooth column. All too soon, he pulled away, drawing a moan of disappointment out of Ryou.

But Ryou's demanding moan quickly turned into a low growl of pleasure as Bakura's mouth closed around one of his nipples. His teeth teased the skin and his tongue soothed the tiny stings, pulling Ryou deeper and deeper under his dark incarnation's spell. He might have stayed that way—in a blissful heaven of sensation—if reason hadn't crashed back through his head. At the simple feel of the other's hands toying with the clasp of his pants and his awakening hardness, reality reasserted itself. He was about to have sex—with himself. And though the spirit often made an odd kind of sense, this was one path Ryou didn't want to follow him down.

"Stop," he gasped out, still short of breath.

Bakura looked up at him, disappointment clear in his eyes. "So there's still some fight left in you?" he asked, his voice low and husky. "That's a shame." He swirled his tongue around a pale nipple one last time, drawing a shudder out of Ryou, then stood. "But time is on my side," he warned, smugness lurking in his tone as he faced the pleasured teen. "You'll come around to my way of thinking soon enough."

* * *

Ryou shifted positions on his bed, hissing in discomfort. As he'd begged off the spirit, he'd known he was doing the right thing—having sex was a thrill, but having sex with someone who was, on most accounts, a copy of himself was a shameful decadence that could not be indulged. Still, hours later, as he laid in the darkness of his room with nothing to distract him, he found himself going over the moment he'd shared with Bakura, again and again. The scene played through his mind in an endless loop, teasing him with his unsatisfied desires, and the hardness that Bakura had so briefly fondled came back with a vengeance.

He shifted again, but no position could relieve the aching pressure between his legs. It wasn't a problem he wanted to take care of, not with wild fantasies of his other-self running through his mind; that would just be adding fuel to an already dangerous fire. Nevertheless, his arousal was not a problem that could be ignored. Every vein in his body pumped liquid heat through him, until he was heavy and burning, and the steady throb of his pulse became a torment. With a sigh, he gave in, doing his best not to think of the ancient spirit.

Ryou's pale hands ran through his hair, ruffling the white locks and scratching at his scalp. He stretched then, arching his back as his hands skimmed down his torso, stopping only for a moment to give attention to his flat nipples. Here and there he pressed at his skin, leaving small stings behind that tingled pleasurably. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands drew close to the clasp of his uncomfortably tight jeans. Carefully, but as quickly as he could, the albino stripped out of his pants, another hiss filling the air at the friction it created. He straightened up, arching his back once more as his hands resumed their journey to the source of his agony.

Suddenly, and completely without permission, his hands froze in place.

"No!" he wailed into the night air, his toes curling as he desperately tried to regain control of his hands.

**Not so fast, Ryou**, Bakura purred in his mind. **If I don't get release tonight, neither do you; we suffer together on this score.**

"That's not fair," Ryou snapped angrily.

**I think I'm being more than generous**, Bakura hissed, **especially after that little show you just put on. **His voice dropped until the hiss became a snarl, **After all, I'm just preventing your release—give it enough time and it will pass. If I really wanted to be mean, I could spend the whole night teaching you what unfulfilled desire is really like.**

Ryou growled low in his throat. "Fuck you!" he snarled, nearly matching the spirit's tone. It was rare that he ever let his temper get the best of him, but arousal could turn him into an animal, pure and simple.

Bakura snorted. **We wouldn't be having this problem if you had.**

"I'm throwing the Ring straight into a dumpster the first chance I get," Ryou vowed, still battling to control his useless limbs.

**Suddenly, I feel like being mean**, Bakura said, his tone turning dark.

For several moments the flustered teen didn't know what to expect, but then his hands began to move of their own volition.

As pale digits caressed the quivering flesh of his stomach, the darkness of his room distorted. Bakura pulled himself from the shadows, the glowing imprint of a tanned fiend, and sprawled across the end of Ryou's bed. Like before, he seemed to exert some sort of presence, despite the fact that he was the flickering, ghostly memory of who had once been in life. Unlike before, his eyes smoldered with a worrying combination of madness and lechery.

Ryou began to struggle, fighting against the hands he couldn't control, against the force that was suddenly keeping him in place.

**Relax**, Bakura smiled widely, **you've got a long night ahead of you now.**

Tanned hands pressed against him, leaving behind the strange sensation of being brushed by a creature made of static. The peculiar digits danced across his chest, dipping low to his abdomen as his own hands trailed up toward his nipples. Ryou whimpered as a blunt fingernail was dragged over his sensitive skin, and squirmed when Bakura's insubstantial caress reached his thighs. He panted miserably, trying to block out what was happening, but it was too much to ignore—his body was eager for the attention, and it was like he was being pleasured by two people rather than one, since he no longer had control of himself. He was being forced to feel whatever the spirit wanted him to; he was completely at Bakura's mercy.

The spirit's hands skimmed the base of his arousal, touching him fleetingly, teasingly. In that one moment, when Ryou's whole existence narrowed down to those errant touches, he understood with painful clarity that the spirit was never going to let him come. Bold fingers wrapped around his manhood, stroking and bringing him to the edge of completion, but always backing off before the smaller boy could tip into that wild abandon. He was forced to hang there, suspended between the painfully intense rush of climax and the frustrated lull of thwarted pleasure.

Almost idly, Ryou's hands began to caress his chest again, dragging fingernails across his sensitive skin. His moans fast turned to whimpers as Bakura's hands settled on his thighs; the muscles there seemed to twitch and burn at the other's touch. But the strokes were gentle now, almost languid, designed to bring Ryou down from the frenzied pleasure he'd just received. After what felt like an eternity, his pulse finally slowed, the pain between his legs finally lessened.

But just as he thought he'd been given a reprieve, the spirit's hands returned to his arousal. Bakura repeated his actions from before: teasing the smaller boy to the point of coming, denying him release, and then soothing his body until it was calm enough to continue again.

The vicious cycle continued on for hours, always bringing Ryou so close to satiation, but never close enough. Climax was constantly one firm stroke away, but Bakura never let him have it. The night drew on, filled with Ryou's pleasured whimpers and moans, and Bakura's determined silence. Through the whole experience, through the hours of mind-numbing denial, the spirit said nothing, made no noise, gave Ryou no way to mark the passage of time. One moment bled into the next, until the whole night was a haze of pain and pleasure.

When the alarm clock finally went off in the early morning, Bakura stopped his torture. Ryou, disoriented and glazed, sobbed in relief.

The spirit rose above him, his eyes dark and unreadable. **I warned you once before that the consequences of threatening to take off the Ring were more severe than you could imagine**, he whispered lowly. **And I wasn't lying, but Ryou**, he soothed, stroking the boy's face, **understand this: these hands can deliver pleasure just as easily as punishment. It's your choice which it will be.**

* * *

A/N: I'm going straight to hell. It's very uncharacteristic of me to write something so intense this early in a story. But, I mean… the man hasn't gotten any in three thousand years; I can only guess how sexually frustrated he must be.

Many, many thanks to both KHT and RainRaven4711 for proof reading and telling me when things didn't work quite right.

Please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Muse's Sing For Absolution.


	5. Stockholm Syndrome

Chapter Five: Stockholm Syndrome

"_This is the last time I'll abandon you,_

_And this is the last time I'll forget you._

_I wish I could."_

Ryou didn't go to school that day. Despite the fact that his alarm clock had brought an end to the torture, he'd found he wasn't in any condition to leave his apartment. It had taken him nearly an hour to work up the energy just to leave his bed; he was exhausted and drained, his legs barely supported his own weight, and even now, hours after Bakura had ceased, the muscles in Ryou's thighs still twitched and burned. To say nothing of the flesh between his thighs.

He knew that the spirit's actions had been born out of punishment, he knew that he had experienced an agony few could comprehend—to be brought to peak after peak without being allowed to spill over, to be denied ultimate fulfillment for hours on end—yet some part of him had relished Bakura's touches. Never in his sixteen years had Ryou been given pleasure so intense that it was bordering on the painful and, though he knew it was sick, he wanted to feel it once more. It wasn't the sort of pleasure that was sane or logical, but it was addictive, and now that he'd had that first taste of darkness, he knew he would want it again.

Which was exactly why he had been hesitant to stay home alone. At school there would have been people around to distract him and deflect Bakura's attention; at home, it was just the two of them. And, though the spirit had remained silent since disappearing that morning, Ryou knew it was only a matter of time before one of them caved toward the other. He had a horrible suspicion that it was going to be him; he'd always been awful at resisting temptation. Bakura was so far _beyond_ temptation, it was hard to describe him as anything but downright seductive—and it was impressive that Ryou had been able to resist for as long as he had. The tanned spirit was darkness and decadence personified, everything Ryou had been subconsciously chasing after for years. Suddenly, those desires were within his grasp, all wrapped up in a pretty package; the fact that they were technically the same person suddenly added a layer of enticing corruption, where only yesterday it had seemed profane.

It was terrifying how spending one night submerged in the frustrating arms of incomplete passion could so thoroughly change a person's outlook.

"What did I do to deserve any of this?" Ryou asked himself, flipping channels on his small TV. He had hoped that the mindlessness of daytime entertainment would take his thoughts off his current situation, but it had done nothing of the sort. His body itched and hummed with restless energy despite the fact that he kept dozing off, his skin felt too tight, and his thoughts kept wandering back to the spirit of the Sennen Ring. He was in a quandary; he couldn't get rid of the spirit without getting rid of the Ring, which the spirit would always prevent him from doing; he didn't want to give into the physical temptation that the spirit presented, but Bakura wouldn't allow Ryou to achieve some much needed pleasure on his own. And, no matter how he thought things through, his choices always came back to two options: give in to the spirit's wickedness, or suffer in silence.

Ryou had briefly considered finding someone at school to relieve his tensions with, but the plan had yielded too many problems. For one thing, he didn't relish the thought of a one-night stand with a person he barely knew but would be forced to face for who knew how long. For another thing, he had a horrible suspicion that Bakura would interrupt any such encounter; the spirit had seemed pretty adamant that they suffer this together.

And that was the funny thing about Bakura's 'punishment'—the spirit had been made to suffer too. Granted, out of the two of them, Ryou had suffered the more immediate agony, but Bakura… How difficult had it been to suffer his own arousal, and to have no physical body with which to slake that lust? Throughout the night the spirit had put talented hands to pale flesh, had had to watch for hours as the boy before him was teased and tormented, had been made to suffer through the stimulation of pleasured whimpers and visual gratification. If Ryou had to take a guess, he would say that Bakura had probably been just as sexually frustrated by the end of the night as he had, if not more. And it was that thought that kept him from truly hating the tanned boy—if Ryou had suffered alone he would have been able to rally and rebel against the spirit, but he knew that they had _both_ been punished last night.

A shrill ringing interrupted his thoughts—the piercing call of the telephone. He hadn't given his number out to anyone, which meant it was probably his family. At the moment, he couldn't think of anyone he wanted to hear from less. But, with a weary sigh, he answered the phone anyway. "Hello?"

"Ryou?" Yugi's sweet, boyish voice filtered in from the other line. "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry?" he asked confusedly—he'd been expecting his mother's voice, and instead he'd gotten a friend's.

"You weren't at school today," Yugi replied, a note of worry in his tone. "Did something happen?"

Ryou refrained from snorting; he could hardly explain his reasons for staying home to innocent little Yugi. "I'm fine," he responded, trying to thread some gruffness into his voice. "I just caught a bit of a cold," he continued, adding a fake cough for good measure. The fact that he was more amused than ashamed at lying to his friend should have bothered him.

A heavy silence descended over the line for a minute. "Ryou, did something happen?" Yugi repeated, but it was clear he was asking about the Ring this time.

The pale boy sighed, slumping against the nearest wall. "One day, Yugi, I might work up the courage to explain everything to you, but right now I'm too confused and your harsh judgment will only make things worse."

"I won't judge," Yugi responded immediately. "Please Ryou, let me help—"

"There's nothing to be done right now," Ryou said with finality, hanging up on his still pleading friend. His brows furrowed as he contemplated their brief exchange. "I didn't give him my phone number," he mused lowly.

Bakura's deep chuckle wafted through his thoughts. **Perhaps we're not the only ones who can find things that don't belong to us**, he broke his hours long silence.

The pale boy closed his eyes, resigned to losing what peace he had achieved. "There's no us about this, Bakura," he replied. "_You_ stole those jewels, not me. I might retain possession of them—which, I will freely admit, is wrong—but I didn't help you go out and acquire them."

**Would you like to?** the spirit asked, a smile in his voice.

Ryou blinked. "What?"

Bakura hummed tunelessly to himself for a moment. **I think, maybe, you should.**

"That I should _what_?" the younger boy snapped in frustration.

**Learn the family trade**, Bakura laughed.** And I don't mean designing tombs.**

"You were an architect?" Ryou asked incredulously. "I thought you said you were a Tomb Robber."

**The easiest tombs to rob are ones you had a hand in creating**, the spirit replied easily.

The pale boy was quiet for a minute. "You were kind of a bastard, weren't you?"

Amused laughter met his ears, but Bakura ignored his question, moving back to the original topic at hand. **So, would you like to come along?**

"I don't need to learn how to steal," Ryou shook his head.

**I didn't ask if you **_**needed**_** to know**, the spirit countered.** I asked if you **_**wanted**_** to know.**

"No," but even to Ryou the word sounded weak and overly curious.

* * *

In a few short hours, Domino City was blanketed by the cool darkness of night. It was a time of silence, of rest, of quiet reflection—

"Stop your complaining," Bakura snapped, disturbing the calm. "Night is the time when nasty things come out of hiding so that they can lurk about menacingly. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."

_Aren't you going to knock me out?_ Ryou asked, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. _It's bad enough that I know you're going to take something I won't have the force of will to return, I don't need to be a party to crime while it happens!_

Bakura chuckled quietly. "You'll change your mind, trust me."

_I don't want to know how you steal things!_ Ryou repeated adamantly.

It had been strange and disconcerting when Bakura had taken complete control of his body. The first time it had happened, Ryou had been forced to sleep, but this time he had seen the horror with his own eyes. With a flash from the Ring, his normally gentle features had sharpened sinisterly—he had seemed taller, leaner, his hair had spiked out wildly, his eyes had narrowed dangerously, and his smile had sharpened predatorily. Standing before the mirror was the creature he had glimpsed when first donning the Ring: the phantom with his face.

Now, as Bakura dashed from shadow to shadow, making his way to an unknown destination, Ryou wanted nothing more than to be blissfully unaware of what was going on. But he didn't know how to disconnect himself, didn't know how to close his mental eyes, or escape to that quiet hallway between their souls. All he could do was stare out of a body he couldn't control—it was like last night all over again, only this time it was pleasure of a different sort that tormented him.

The thrill of doing something wicked, the anticipation of a chase, and the sweet burn of greed hummed through his blood.

"This really isn't that difficult," Bakura murmured, coming to halt.

_Here?_ Ryou asked, panicked. _You're going to steal from here?_ The building before them spiraled out of the ground, rising into the sky like a giant, until it dominated everything near it. It was the tallest building in all of Domino City, as easy to fear as it was to worship—the Kaiba Corp super complex: an office, a theme park, and a shopping center, all in one.

"Aim high, little one," Bakura responded, "or it simply isn't worth it. Now," he crouched low, "as I was saying, this really isn't that difficult. Your first step is to be sure you're alone." The Ring flashed.

A jumble of images assaulted Ryou, disappearing as quickly as they had come.

"The Sennen Ring can see farther than either of us," the spirit explained. "It tells me that there are a couple of guards stationed around here, but the perimeter of the building is so large that it will hardly be any trouble at all to avoid them." He straightened from his crouch. "So tell me, Ryou, how would you enter the building?"

_I wouldn't_, he responded acerbically.

"Humor me," the spirit pressed, a warning in his voice.

Ryou sighed. _I don't know… break open a window, I guess._

"You could do that," Bakura agreed, "if you want to completely give yourself away."

_I didn't ask to be here_, Ryou snapped, _so don't mock me._

"True," the spirit conceded, "but you would still end up in prison if we were caught, so we are in this together," He paused to let that information sink in. "You're thinking about this all wrong," he continued after a moment. "How do you normally enter a building?"

_Without the intent to rob anyone blind_, the boy muttered to himself. _Through the door_, he added before the spirit could growl at him. _But it's locked._

"Locks are easy enough to pick," Bakura countered. His fingers delved into a pocket, withdrawing a set of strange looking pins and screwdrivers Ryou knew he didn't own, much less carried around with him. The spirit quickly set to work, a blur of movement and quiet clicks until, with a metallic pop, the lock disengaged.

_This doesn't seem right_, Ryou shook his mental head. _Kaiba Corp is one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, and this building is their crowning jewel—why would they have such easily circumvented security?_

"Because arrogance can bring even the mightiest of us to our knees," the spirit replied while he replaced his tools. "They're the biggest and the best, so they think there is nothing to fear." He paused, his hand on the door. "But you are right; that was too easy," but even as the spirit spoke, he was pushing open the door.

A sound broke the stillness of the night—a sound so high it could barely be interpreted by human ears. _An alarm_, Ryou cursed. _We're screwed._

But Bakura just laughed. "Don't jump to conclusions so quickly," he chastised. "This just means we have to work _fast_." The Sennen Ring flashed once more, and the building not only fell silent, but it fell into complete darkness as well. "This will buy us a little time, and provide us with some cover."

_Is there anything the Ring doesn't do?_ Ryou asked curiously.

"Who's to say?" the spirit shrugged, dashing through the building. "The Sennen Items are more powerful than anyone can comprehend, even those who created them."

_And you use yours for petty theft_, the boy snorted.

"There's nothing petty about it," Bakura replied, hastening past closed stores. "I stole more wealth in one lifetime than some countries can lay claim to throughout their entire history."

Ryou ignored the dim glitter and sparkle of storefront merchandise. Though he knew the building had been plunged into a murky darkness, he had hardly any trouble seeing at all. _You're much too proud of that fact._

"You would be too," the thief said, finally stopping in front of a shop. "It's an achievement worth bragging about." He contemplated the wares on display behind the closed doors. "I think you need some new clothes," he mused.

_No_, the boy immediately disagreed.

Bakura walked closer to the store, pointing at a striking coat on display. "But imagine that soft material brushing you from shoulder to ankle, caressing every plane of your body. Do you know what it's like to be enveloped by the trophy of a hunt gone so very right?"

Ryou's thoughts immediately went to the long red coat the tanned boy wore when he appeared in his spirit form. He had, distantly, admired the garment—

"You could have one of your own," Bakura coaxed, interrupting the boy's thoughts.

Just like with the jewels, once Ryou's eyes were fixed on a prize, his resistance melted away. Greed burned through him like a savage fire, leaving nothing behind but the fierce desire for that coat. _I want one in black_, he murmured. He didn't own much in the way of black clothing, his parents had always disapproved of the color.

"Anything you want," Bakura purred, already working the lock on the shop's door.

* * *

It hadn't taken long for the police and the security guards to respond to the abruptly silenced alarm, but by then Ryou and Bakura were already gone. Their short spree had spanned across four different stores, yielding hundreds of dollars in clothing, fine art, and games.

Though he knew it was wrong, and he was likely to completely deny it later, Ryou had to admit that he had gotten caught up in the moment—he had been a willing partner and student for Bakura. In a sad testament of truth, the pale boy knew he'd had more fun that night than he'd had in many years.

Which was why finding Yugi standing outside Ryou's apartment as he dragged his stolen treasures home was more unwelcome than if the police had been waiting for him. Yugi was a slap from reality, a painful reminder of the innocence he was losing and the friends he didn't know how to face.

"I didn't want to think it was you," Yugi shook his head, his violet eyes clouding over. "But when you mentioned that the spirit of the Ring was a thief, just after we had talked about the jewel robbery, I couldn't help but be suspicious." He eyed the pale boy from head to toe, taking in the long coat he was wearing, the assorted jewelry that flashed in the dim lighting, and the sacks of pilfered goods he held tight in his clenched hands. "You didn't pay for a single thing in any of those bags, did you?"

Ryou didn't break eye contact with the smaller boy, but he didn't answer him either. Denial would be incriminating, and the truth, so sweet moments before, was a painful thing to admit aloud to his friend. "It's complicated," he demurred, fishing the key to his front door out of a pocket.

"It's the Ring," Yugi returned plainly. "I know you would never do anything like this on your own—"

"How would you know?" Ryou snapped, becoming defensive—guilt and fear ate away at him, forcing him to push Yugi away, mentally if not physically. "We've known each other for all of three days, and suddenly you're the expert on Ryou Bakura?" he asked sarcastically. "You never know the true measure of a man until you've seen him under pressure—well this is me under pressure, Yugi! I've given in to temptation, I've welcomed corruption."

"Which never would have been a problem in the first place if it weren't for the spirit in of Ring," the smaller boy argued.

"It doesn't work like that," Ryou shook his head. "We're the same person, him and I. Even if we'd never met, the qualities that he's drawn out in me still would have been there, waiting to be awakened."

Yugi became very still, his eyes going distant. "I refuse to believe that," he said firmly, clutching his Puzzle.

"Whether you believe in it or not, the truth remains the same," the albino replied.

Yugi refocused, but his bearing was different now—_he_ was different now. It was the Other Yugi again. Red eyes gazed at the pale boy accusingly. "The door to darkness has opened, Ryou," he growled, his voice low and rough, "and you're too much of a fool to resist it."

"That's more than a little ironic coming from someone who's too much of a fool to realize he _is_ the darkness," Ryou replied, backing away from the other boy. "How long are you going to carry on pretending to be Yugi?"

The Eye of Horus began to burn brightly across the Other Yugi's forehead, glowing ominously. For one brief moment, before everything went black, Ryou sensed Bakura scramble for control of their body, but it was too late. As the world faded away, Ryou felt the Ring being ripped from him. Then there was simply nothingness.

* * *

The moment he awoke, he knew something was wrong. His head felt as though it had been jammed with wool, and that sense of _extra_ he'd gotten so used to was gone. No, he narrowed his eyes, it wasn't completely gone—there were hollow echoes where it had once been, like a phantom limb that didn't know it had been severed off.

Shakily, Ryou stood from his slump on the floor, taking a look around him. He was in his apartment, dazedly circling his own kitchen floor. On the nearby table rested the bags of his stolen treasures, the pilfered jewelry still graced him, and the filched coat enveloped him in a cloud of soft black leather. Nothing was missing, except—

"Bakura?" Ryou asked quietly. Heavy silence met his ear, so he tried again. "Bakura?" he asked louder. Still no response. He sped from room to room, shouting for the other as his hands clutched at where the Ring should have been. But, in the end, he neither saw nor heard the ancient spirit—though occasionally he thought he felt the dead echo of a reply. "He's gone," the albino whispered to himself, slumping to the floor where he had first woken up. "The Ring's gone, and so is Bakura." He closed his eyes and shuddered. "I'm alone."

And for a time, he raged. He cursed fate, destiny, and his father—why did he always end up alone? He cursed the heavens, humanity, and Yugi Mutou—he was tired of being by himself! But most of all, he cursed Bakura and the Ring—for one brilliant moment, he'd had someone, someone who _couldn't_ leave him and didn't want to. Now it was just him, the empty apartment, and his treasures—a painful parallel to his childhood and the relationship he shared with his father. Ryou fell asleep on that floor, still cursing and crying as exhaustion claimed him.

Though the night had been black and grim, when he awoke, the morning was bright and new—his natural reason reasserted itself. He had wanted to get rid of the Ring, had wanted to be free of Bakura's tainting influence. As long as he had worn the mystical item he never would have been able to take it off, the spirit had been too strict and watchful—hell, Ryou had even been punished for just threatening to take the Ring off! Now that he had some clarity and distance from the situation, he realized how lucky he was to be rid of the spirit. Bakura had been interesting company, full of surprises—and lies. The spirit had tried to seduce him away from his friends by saying that he accepted Ryou as he was, but he hadn't really. From the very moment Ryou had donned the Ring, Bakura had tried to change him; he could see that now. Even if it was true that they were the same person, that they possessed the same qualities, Ryou's darkness had been buried, lying dormant. But for reasons of his own, the spirit had wanted that darkness at the fore, had wanted to reshape Ryou into an image that looked something more like what Bakura had been in life.

And Ryou had let him. From the very beginning he had listened to the spirit, had bowed to the ancient's will. In the end, Ryou had willingly dived into that destructive, downward spiral. But now he had been saved—there was no shadow looming over him anymore, no secrets building that he had to keep from his friends. He was freer now than he'd ever been in his life…

So why did it still feel as though he were shackled by grief?

* * *

Ryou went to school the next day, stuck in an erratic haze. Some moments seemed to fly by faster than he could comprehend, while others dragged by in painful slowness. He moved gracefully but mechanically through his morning routine and classes, only seeming to come alive when Yugi confronted him during lunch.

Though he had only been going to Domino's high school for less than a week, Ryou had found he enjoyed eating his lunch on the roof, where he could watch the world from on high. His friends typically ate in the classroom, but today Yugi seemed determined to make contact.

The smaller boy sat down close, not meeting his eyes. "What was it like?"

Not, 'How are you?' or any other expression of concern, Ryou noted darkly. "It was like any sort of temptation," he replied quietly. "I knew it was wrong, but I was too weak to resist it."

Yugi shook his head. "I meant having the Ring taken away."

Ryou's chest tightened. He kept telling himself that he was better off now, that he'd been saved, but it didn't seem to make any difference. "I feel like a drug addict," he admitted. "I know that the Ring and the spirit were trying to corrupt me, that no good could have come from the situation—yet I still mourn their loss, still crave their presence."

"I can't even imagine," Yugi sympathized. "I know I would be a wreck if anyone stole my Puzzle." He fell silent for moment, darting violet glances at the pale boy. "It wasn't right, what you were doing, what the spirit was making you into."

"But I still feel the hole he left behind," Ryou said softly. "Like a gap that can't be bridged; there's suddenly _nothing_ where something had once been. And that nothingness hurts, Yugi."

The smaller boy frowned to himself. "I can't condone any of what you were going through—but at the same time, I don't really _know_ what you were going through." He sighed. "None of this feels right; it shouldn't be up to me who can and can't have a Sennen Item. The Other Me has been a great help in most respects, but I worry about what he did this time."

Ryou closed his eyes. "I want it back, Yugi—I need to wear the Ring, if for no other reason than to get rid of the disturbing silence in my soul."

Yugi shook his head. "I won't help you," he replied. "I worry about the spirit of the Ring. If you want him back, you'll have to get it on your own."

Blue eyes narrowed as he cocked his head to the side. Was Yugi—sweet, innocent Yugi—being subversive? True, he wasn't going to hand Ryou the Ring, but he'd just invited the pale boy to steal it back. Was he in such disagreement with the Other Yugi, or did he just want to be rid of the Sennen Ring?

* * *

Ryou laid awake that night, staring sightlessly at his ceiling. His room was a library of reminders—the vast horde of stolen treasures spilled out across his desk and floor—there was nothing to look at that didn't hold some memory of Bakura, not even the bed he laid on. The pale boy was doing his best to forget, but in the darkness of night he felt the spirit's absence keenly. There was no one to talk to in these quiet hours, no one to share his thoughts with, or to distract him from his solitude. Silence pressed in on him from all sides, until his craving for company, for Bakura, was nearly a physical thing.

Yugi had offered him back the Ring. Perhaps not in such precise language or action, but it had been clear that the shorter boy wasn't going to stop any attempt to reclaim the misplaced Sennen Item. All Ryou had to do was go and get it. It was immaterial that he didn't quite know where Yugi lived, or the fact that he was contemplating breaking-and-entering one of his friends' homes. The important thing was that the Ring could be back around his neck in a few short hours if he was brave enough to go after it.

But then he would be right back where he had started—trapped by the spirit's will, exposed to his tainting corruption. Ryou had wanted to be rid of the Ring and Bakura but, in their absence, he had come to realize that no matter how much he feared their influence, he desired their presence more. In only a matter of days, he had grown to rely on Bakura for companionship, and maybe their relationship was toxic, but it was better than being alone.

The memory of lean muscles flashed in Ryou's mind—the memory of dark blue eyes, short silver hair, and a pale scar. He remembered long legs and an ancient style of dress, but more than that he remembered tanned skin—a great expanse of luscious, smooth skin, marred only by errant scars, following the dips and hollows of his well formed body, wrapping the thief in a beautiful pelt of dusky mocha. Ryou needed to see Bakura again, needed to gaze at the body that was so much like his own, yet so incredibly different.

By the time his thoughts cleared, Ryou was already halfway out of his apartment, wearing the long black coat Bakura had stolen for him. The streets were dark in the hush of deep night, and only the loneliest of souls were out wandering at such a still hour. Ryou didn't truthfully know where he was going, having only a vague idea where Yugi lived, but he walked with confidence and purpose. The dead echoes of the Ring's power pulsed through him, guided him, and he trusted that power—at least, he trusted it enough to steer him wrong. And, since he was only out in order to steal back his Sennen Item, which _was_ the wrong thing to do in this situation, he listened to the faded whispers that crawled weakly through his soul. Under any other circumstance, he would have been terrified at the wordless, tainted instruction he was receiving, but right now he was too desperate to care.

After only a few minutes of silent wandering, Ryou's feet stopped in front of a small building, designed as both a store and a home. The thrill of conquest surged through him; the Ring was here, he could feel it—the only problem was that he didn't know exactly where it was, or how he was going to get it. It wasn't exactly as if he could throw pebbles at Yugi's window and expect the smaller boy to toss the stolen Item down to him. True enough, he could break a window, but that would alert the Mutous of his presence, and he didn't want to add property damage to his list of offenses.

'You're thinking about this all wrong,' Bakura's words from the night before suddenly came back to him. 'How do you normally enter a building?'

"Through the door," Ryou whispered to himself. "But how?" He might have Bakura's lock-picking tools, but he had no idea how to use them; he could waste hours clicking away at the door without ever gaining entry. Still, he had to try.

The small pouch of tools yielded a number of confusing pins and screwdrivers so, with a quiet prayer to whatever misanthropic deity watched over thieves, Ryou chose two at random and set to work. It was difficult at first, since he didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing, but the more he tried to remember what he'd seen Bakura do, the easier it became. Though his mind had no knowledge of lock picking, it seemed his body remembered the motions well enough. After a few deft turns, some cursing, and the heavy slide of the deadbolt disengaging, the blue-eyed boy quietly walked into the shop.

It was silent inside, presumably the inhabitants were sleeping, and no alarm had gone off to alert them to Ryou's presence. Now all he had to do was find the Ring. Merchandise of all sorts stretched before him—games, guides, and collectors' items—but not the one thing he was seeking. Not that he had expected it to be in the store; already knowing about the spirit that possessed the Ring, the Other Yugi would have wanted to keep it close. Which meant only one thing—he had to find Yugi's room.

A flight of stairs led up to the comfy suit of rooms that comprised the Mutou residence. Three hallways faced the intruder, each hallway lined with several closed doors. Ryou felt his heart begin to race—it was one thing to break into someone's home, it was quite another to be caught while doing it—behind any one of those doors could be a person that was willing and able to call the police on him. With a tight swallow, he moved onward; he'd come too far to back away now, even if it landed him in jail. But Ryou's search yielded little, aside from the snoring form of a man so old the albino could only assume he was Yugi's grandfather.

Finally, after an uncomfortably long period of sneaking through the house, the pale boy came to the last door; it had to be Yugi's room. Inside, the short boy in question slept away on his bed, unaware that anyone was intruding. The moment Ryou entered the room, his eyes zeroed in on Yugi's desk—laying unobtrusively on the wooden surface was the Sennen Ring. The round stretch of gold glittered in the pale moonlight that filtered through window, beckoning all who looked upon it. And for a moment, it made him angry—made him angry that he wanted it back so badly, made him angry that it was in Yugi's possession at all.

In a few quick strides, he crossed the room and grabbed the Ring. The second his fingers closed around the gold it seemed to flicker with an inner glow, the sense of _extra_ returned, and Bakura's wicked approval flooded through him. It was one perfect moment of fulfillment, contentment, spoiled only by the fact that the thin cord had been removed from the Ring, keeping Ryou from putting it back on.

**Quickly**, Bakura urged him, his voice oddly distant, **get us home before that ass in the Puzzle discovers what's happened.**

Ryou listened, sneaking out of the Mutou house as quickly as he could, then ran back to his apartment. There would be consequences to face in the morning—Yugi would know that he was the one to steal the Ring and the Other Yugi would be angry at that discovery—but, for now, he would revel in his small victory.

The Ring belonged to him, and no one would interfere with that!

* * *

A/N: _"What did I do to deserve any of this?" Ryou asked himself_… Simple, my dear Ryou—you were Bakura in a past life!

A very large **thank you** goes out to everyone who has reviewed so far—I really appreciate your comments and encouragements, it's what keeps me updating so quickly. And, as always, many thanks go to KHT and RainRaven4711—for indulging my Yu-Gi-Oh mood and for being wonderful betas.

Please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or the lyrics by Muse.


	6. Falling Away With You

Chapter Six: Falling Away With You.

"_Staying awake to chase a dream,_

_tasting the air you're breathing in,_

_I know I won't forget a thing."_

To say it had been a strange night would have been an understatement—Ryou had discovered himself to be hideously dependant on things that were bad for him, had also found himself to be a fair, albeit nervous, thief, and now he was arguing with a piece of jewelry.

"I _can't_ put you on," he stressed, gesturing wildly at the Sennen Ring, "there's no cord left in the apartment."

**Don't be foolish**, Bakura's voice echoed back to him, **I brought you more than enough silver to handle this.**

"There are two problems with using the silver necklaces," Ryou countered, pacing in front of the small table the Ring was resting upon. "One: silver is delicate, I don't think it could handle the weight of all this gold. And two: don't you think that's drawing just a bit too much attention? It was hard enough to hide the Ring when it was just on a piece of twine—if I thread it with silver, you can bet not a single person is going to miss it!"

There was a pause, as though the spirit were thinking something over. **Why do you never wear any of your jewelry?** he finally asked.

The pale boy stopped pacing. "What do you mean? I wear it often enough."

**With the exception of the Ring and a few trinkets, I've never seen you wear any at all**, the spirit mused.

Ryou shrugged. "Jewelry is considered feminine, and I already look girly enough—why give bullies more to notice? Besides," he snorted, "the jewelry you brought me was stolen; I can't very well wear any of that out in public."

**But you wore the coat**, Bakura replied.

"That was different," Ryou murmured. "I needed to look and feel the part of a thief, or I never would have even made it to Yugi's."

Bakura snorted. **You need to worry less about how you appear to others. There's a brilliant exhilaration that comes along with wearing your ill-gotten gains. After all, treasure was meant to be flaunted.**

"I think it's bad enough that I resorted to stealing," the pale boy hissed. "That's more than enough corruption for one night."

The spirit sighed. **All right**, he relented, **but you still need to find a way to put the Ring back on.**

"Why are you so adamant about this?" Ryou asked. "It's four in the morning; can't it wait until a more decent time?"

**No,** Bakura snapped. **Something unusual happened while I was in the hands of little Yugi and his Other. **His voice grew quiet, distant. **The Sennen Items will always resonate with one another—last time, it gave me the power to understand your world. I don't think we were that lucky this time.**

Ryou's eyes widened and, panicked, he snatched up the Ring. "Are you hurt?" he asked quickly. "What's wrong?"

But the spirit didn't answer.

Icy fear began to lick its way up Ryou's spine. From the moment he had reclaimed the Ring, he'd known something was wrong—there had been a troubling distance between him and the spirit—and, even though he could still feel the Ring's innate power, the grounded center that was Bakura was stifled and fading. What had happened at the Mutou's; what had the Other Yugi done?

Desperate now, his heart beating out of his chest, Ryou dashed through the apartment, slamming through his bedroom so fast that the door bounced off the opposite wall and nearly shut behind him. Uncaring, the pale boy dove at the collection of gems on his desk, his hands quickly snatching at the strands of precious metal. In the blink of an eye, he had the Sennen Ring resting over his neck on a thick thread of silver. "Bakura?" he tried to reach the other as the Ring settled over his heart.

The sense of _extra_ overwhelmed him once more, integrating all his senses with a hyperawareness, but the spirit remained silent. He could feel the ancient within him—like a warm, dark shadow that enveloped his very being—but there was something wrong about it, something different. It was almost as if Bakura were tattered around the edges, fading in and out of reality while he tried to stabilize himself.

"Don't do this to me," Ryou pleaded, his hand pressing the Ring to his chest. "I tried so hard to get you back—I became a criminal for you." He fell to his knees. "You said I was a treasure to you, that you would never let me go, never leave me," he bowed his head low, defeat beginning to weigh him down. "If you break that promise, you'll be no better than my father." He shook his head and sighed. "I don't even know how many years I wasted chasing after him, hoping that one day he would just open up his eyes and see me standing there. I don't think I could bear it if I lost the one person who really did see me. You might throw me into fits on a regular basis, and I _know_ you're bad for me, but when I think about you never speaking to me again… the world seems crueler somehow."

The weight of the future and the past pressed in on Ryou, smothering the boy until a single thought occurred to him: he had to fight. As a child, he'd done whatever he could to gain his father's attention, but his choices had been limited; now he was a teenager with many more options at his disposal, and he wouldn't let Bakura go until he'd exhausted every last one. He had to see the spirit, had to talk to him; the desire burned through his blood until there was no other thought in his mind. Forcefully, he unleashed the strength of his will on the Ring, marveling as it readily responded to him. For a moment, he felt his mind disconnect from his body, but the sensation died as soon as he found himself standing in the hallway between his soul and Bakura's.

The hallway was predictably different—the walls had been scratched and carved, as though a great beast had gone on a rampage. Foreboding gripped Ryou, but urgency made him move on. Through the first door was the same room he remembered—an ancient marble hall, lovingly decorated with the wonders of an age long dead—but it, too, had been caught in the storm. The oil basins were cracked and broken, sending their oils and fires across the smooth floor to creep along in an ever-growing blaze. A few of the massive pillars that supported the great ceiling had tumbled down, revealing patchy holes to the unseen world beyond. He turned away from these disturbing details, only looking at them long enough to ascertain that Bakura wasn't trapped among the wreckage.

Where could the spirit be? The hall seemed to continue on forever, and Ryou had seen precious little of it in the past. Desperately, ignoring the heat of the spreading fires, his eyes sought out the filmy curtain that had once lead him into a room of treasures. It didn't take long to find, though he was dismayed to discover that the curtain had been ripped to shreds. The world beyond remained the same, however. From wall to wall, the room was stuffed with the finest things an ancient Egyptian could have laid his hands on. And, for the most part, the horde seemed untouched—a few tables and chairs had been overturned, but nothing more.

Bakura was sprawled over a mountain of coins, seemingly unconscious. His red coat had been forgone, leaving him only with a wrap of cloth around his waist, and he was sweating, breathing heavy. Under most circumstances Ryou would have pondered how a spirit could sweat and why he would have to breathe, but something more disturbing caught his attention. At erratic intervals, Bakura flickered in and out of sight, in and out of being, and it terrified the pale boy. He'd seen it happen before, of course, when the spirit had appeared to him in real life—but this place was a little slice of reality all its own, and Bakura had always had solid form here.

He raced to the spirit's side, falling to his knees until he could shift the older boy's head onto his lap. Ryou was disoriented, and unsure what to do, other than make Bakura as comfortable as he could—which would be hard since he still didn't know what was wrong. Aside from his sickly and flickering appearance, the spirit had no wounds, no visible maladies.

"You need to tell me what to do," Ryou pleaded. "How can I fix this if I don't even know what happened?"

With a wince, Bakura's eyes snapped open. His gaze was glassy and unfocused, but his hand found Ryou's cheek unerringly. He disappeared from sight several times as his fingers danced over the pale boy's skin. "I don't know what's wrong," he admitted on a laugh, his voice low and husky.

Ryou swallowed roughly. There had always been a hint of insanity lurking around the ancient's eyes, but his unseeing gaze now spoke of nothing but madness. Had the Other Yugi tried to destroy him, or was Bakura merely being affected by the prolonged resonance between the Sennen Items?

"I need more help than that," Ryou replied. "Tell me what happened—what are you fighting?"

"I don't know," the spirit repeated, lowering his hand. "The Ring has always been my anchor, but suddenly it feels like I can't hang onto it anymore."

The pale boy shivered. "What happens if you let go?" he asked, already fearing he knew the answer.

Bakura's eyes finally focused on him, and the insanity that glittered in their blue depths was frightening—what must it have been like to live in this place for thousands of years while everything he knew grew old and was forgotten? "I will die a true death," he answered, his voice filled with painful certainty.

"No," Ryou shook his head. "I lost you for a day—_just one short day_—and I didn't know what to do with myself. I can't lose you forever; I refuse!"

Bakura laughed. "You sound more like me by the minute," he purred.

"Maybe," Ryou conceded. "But that only means you have to stick around to see how I turn out, right?"

The tanned boy shook his head. "If my ties to this anchor are cut, I'll disappear, and there's nothing either of us can do about that, my little landlord."

"Landlord?" Ryou echoed, his mind racing. "Can you anchor you soul to something else—even if it's only until you can figure out how to fix the Ring?" he asked in a rush.

"It's possible," Bakura nodded. "But I don't have the energy; as it is, I'm barely holding on to the Ring."

"Can you stand?" the pale boy asked, already moving to support the other's weight.

Glassy eyes regarded him for a moment. "Why?" he asked, but moved to stand anyway.

"I'm your landlord, right? You've been using the Ring to possess me," Ryou explained, slowly navigating the two of them through the blazing hall. "But now the Ring is rejecting you, so why not move your soul into me?"

"Even if I had the energy to make the transfer," Bakura replied, "it would be different than when I resided in the Sennen Item—you'll find it overwhelming."

"You're a bad habit," the pale boy explained, "but I'm already addicted. I said that I refused to lose you, and I meant it. If you don't have the strength to make this transfer, then I'll make it happen by myself."

After a lot of stumbling, they finally made it out of the burning room and back into the hallway. Ryou had never been through the second door, had never seen the room that was meant to reflect his own soul. It was a large space that looked depressingly similar to his apartment, but the walls were shadowy and amorphous, as though to suggest that things _could_ lay beyond those boundaries. He quickly shook off his curiosity though; he didn't have time to look around. With as much speed as possible, he laid Bakura out on the couch, then paused. He knew what he wanted to do, he just wasn't sure how to do it. But he had already bent the Ring's power to his will once this night, so he could do it again.

Nervously, Ryou searched inward until he found the warm pulse of the Ring's power. _From one place to the another_, he commanded the Ring. _I want what you have—give it to me._ For many minutes it seemed as though nothing were happening, but slowly he began to feel something from his real body—he felt the five cones of the Ring press against him until they were buried into his flesh. The pain seemed minor in this place that existed on a spiritual level, a dim echo of sensation from his physical shell.

Suddenly, Bakura moaned, his dark face caught in a grimace. Ryou was about to ask him what was wrong, but he already knew. A heat was building up in the Ring, flooding through the cones and into Ryou's body. The world spun and his senses reeled as Bakura's soul languidly drained into him. A rush of foreign sounds blared through him, as well as a thousand thoughts, feelings, and a mess of jumbled images—the spirit's memories, perhaps? Ryou felt like he was being stretched thin, stuffed to overflowing with something bigger and darker than he could have ever imagined.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the sensations died away, until the pale boy was left with nothing but the feel of five long trails of blood running down his chest. Eventually, even that faded away, and with it went Ryou's consciousness.

**

* * *

We're two of a kind, you and I**, a smooth voice trickled through the darkness.

Ryou frowned, his mind grasping onto the words, even as his body demanded that he sleep more. He wanted to sleep—he was so very tired, and there was a comfortable warmness enveloping him—but the voice wouldn't leave him alone.

**You're more powerful than you imagine**, it continued, **but you're lucky I was there to stop you. If you had gone on any longer, **_**you**_** would have been the one living within the Sennen Ring.**

The Sennen Ring? Ryou's eyes snapped open, his sleep thoroughly abandoned as he remembered what had happened. But the world remained dark as his gaze desperately searched for something to focus on. "Why can't I see?" he whispered.

Long finger's worked through the pale boy's hair, massaging his scalp. **The blindness will pass**, Bakura answered. **You nearly worked yourself to death this night—you're body is in shock.** Ryou tried to sit up, but arms from below suddenly held him down. "You lost enough blood to have earned some rest," Bakura whispered in his ear, sending shivers up the boy's spine.

It was then that Ryou realized the comfortable warmth he was laying on was Bakura. But it couldn't be, his mind argued; the spirit's form in the real world was merely a mass of static and pressure. This felt like a living, breathing person. "How?" he asked, blindly trailing his fingers over the spirit's face, mapping out with touch what he could not see.

"This must have been what the resonance between the Items caused," Bakura replied, tightening his hold on the smaller boy.

Ryou laid his head down on the ancient's chest; he was tired of straining his useless eyes, and the dull ache around his sternum was beginning to flare up into genuine pain. "So you have your own body now?" he asked quietly. Why did that revelation make his soul sing and feel empty all at once?

"No," the spirit shook his head, "I can only hold this form for a little while." His fingers began to trail up the other's back, stroking him like a favored pet or a lover.

"Do you think," Ryou swallowed, trying to ignore the touches, "you would have been given back your body completely if I hadn't forced you out of the Ring?"

The tanned boy shook his head again. "My body is long dead," he replied, "and reincarnated into you. If it were at all possible for me to live again, I think it would take the power of all seven Sennen Items to do it." His hands clutched the boy close again. "We had no way to know what was happening, so I'm grateful that you took action. Besides," his voice dropped lecherously, "I like it in you; it's tight and cozy."

Ryou laughed weakly—he knew he should be offended or appalled by the other's words, but he simply didn't have the energy. "You've certainly made a fast recovery."

Bakura hummed an agreement. "It's more than we'll be able to say for you, however." His hands traveled lazily to the pale boy's chest. "What, exactly, were you thinking of when you forced my transfer?"

It was then that the younger boy realized he had a swath of thick bandages circling his torso. He'd been in his soul room when the Ring had impaled him, so he had only dimly felt the pain then, but now it burned through him with a vengeance, making him wonder how deeply he'd been wounded. "I don't know," he finally answered. "I panicked—the only thought in my head was that I didn't want to you taken away again."

"Admirable sentiments," the spirit agreed, "but there were other ways you could have done it—ways that didn't involve maiming yourself."

"Wait," Ryou frowned, narrowing his useless eyes at the other, "I just saved your unlife, and you're angry with me because I was injured in the process?"

Bakura snorted. "If you want me to seem completely illogical—yes."

"Well, there's gratitude for you," Ryou quipped sarcastically, putting his head back down.

"Oh, I am grateful, little one," the spirit purred. "But how am I to express it? Words fall pitifully short, I can't think of anything grand enough to get for you, and you're in no condition to receive any physical affirmation of that gratitude. Under the circumstances, I have done what I can: I've bound your wounds, and I intend to harass you every minute until you've made a full recovery."

The pale boy yawned, his exhaustion catching up to him once more. "I don't understand why you're so worked up over this," he murmured sleepily. "You're the one that almost died."

Bakura's strong hands cupped the smaller boy's head, drawing the unseeing gaze to meet his own. "Because you almost went with me, Ryou," he said grimly, his fingers tracing the contours of the boy's face. "Two or three more inches of tissue, and the Ring would have pieced your heart," he sighed, sounding more serious than Ryou had ever heard him. "And as if that weren't enough, you worked so hard at the soul transfer that you nearly reversed it completely; you almost tied your own soul to the Sennen Ring." He growled then, a wicked sound that vibrated his chest and rumbled through the boy lying atop him. "I'm angry for good reason."

Ryou yawned again. "You've got no ground to stand on," he whispered, sleep pulling at him.

"I take care of my treasures," the spirit whispered darkly, "so I get understandably upset when they're damaged. After all, reparations can lead to some unfortunate side effects."

Ryou felt his curiosity pique, even as dread filled him at those words. Questions bubbled up to his lips, but exhaustion finally won the battle—he passed out long before a single sound could leave his throat.

* * *

A/N: I'm not usually one to write much in the way of maiming or bloodshed, but the original manga was fairly violent, when you look at it. The scene where Ryou gets impaled by the Sennen Ring actually happened in the manga (I believe it's in chapter fifty, the same chapter where he makes his first appearance) and it was really powerful, in my opinion, so I wanted to find a way to work it into my own story.

And, once again, Bakura turns suggestive. This man will seriously not stop with the innuendo.

Please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own YGO or any of the music by Muse.


	7. Interlude

Chapter Seven: Interlude.

Ryou awoke with a start, his head reeling as he tried to figure out why it felt like he had double the appendages as usual. He curled in on himself, fighting down a wave of nausea. It felt as though he had moved four arms and four legs, as though he were cradling two heads in four hands—but all the extra limbs where occupying the exact same space he was. Another wave of nausea hit him and he doubled over, bending two spines as he gulped down air with two mouths. He felt overstretched again, as if all the extra bits where hiding just below his skin, barely contained.

**I told you, you would find it overwhelming**, Bakura commented, but there was a darkness in his voice—concern or anger? **You were spared the brunt of it last night because I stayed out of your body for as long as possible.**

"What's happening?" Ryou asked, shivering when he didn't quite recognize his own voice.

**Thanks to the power of the Ring, I could control your body before without having to be in it**, the spirit replied. **But now there are two souls in one body and, though we are technically the same soul and quite similar, your flesh is desperately trying to accommodate both of us. **He sighed.** It wouldn't have been quite so pronounced if you hadn't nearly killed yourself.**

Ryou gasped and shook—he suddenly felt like he was breathing fire. "What do you mean?" he managed to ask between gulps of blazing air.

**You were damaged**, Bakura explained, **almost dead. I had to force your body to repair itself, but since there were two souls housed in its flesh instead of just one, it didn't go quite the way it would have… **_**normally**_** gone.**

"I'm in a small amount of agony here," the pale boy snapped. "Could you stop being so cryptic?"

The spirit sighed again. **You're changing**, he replied plainly. **Your body is shifting itself into a form that would be more acceptable for the both of us to inhabit.**

Ryou unrolled himself, trying to stretch out before his protesting muscles cramped. "Will it always feel like this?"

**Once your body is finished shifting, the only thing you'll be left with is the sense of extra, the sense of double**, Bakura answered, his tone unchanging. It was anger that burned in their quiet depths—or perhaps discomfort at having to see his treasure suffer. And Ryou could sympathize with that all too well; after all, he'd been in Bakura's shoes only a few hours ago.

It took what felt like forever for the nausea to subside—along with the aches and the burning—and, just as the ancient had said, eventually Ryou was left with nothing other than the disconcerting feeling that he had more limbs than any human should. Carefully, exhaustedly, he made his way into the bathroom. It was difficult to walk at first; his balance was thrown off wildly by having an extra set of leg he couldn't see, and his center of balance had shifted.

He made it to the bathroom with little incident, however the vision that greeted him in the mirror was astounding for its duality. In some respects, he still looked very much like himself, but small details had been altered. His hair seemed shorter somehow—he distinctly remembered it trailing halfway down his back, because he'd never had the time to get it cut, but now it only seemed to brush past his shoulders; his skin was still pale, but no longer the bleached white of an albino; his face had lost some of its boyish roundness; he was taller by at least half a head, and he was more whippish, more muscled; and, most disturbing of all, he could faintly, ever so faintly, make out a pale series of scars trailing under his right eye. All in all, it looked as though someone had thrown together his appearance with Bakura's, and had tried to find an average between the two of them.

With a sigh, Ryou began to undo the bandages that circled his torso—they were tight now that he'd gone through an unexpected growth spurt. The white gauze unrolled to reveal the damage that the Ring had done. Amid the caked trails and wide swells of dried blood were five punctures, all arranged in a semi-circle around his sternum. Or rather, they _had_ been punctures. Bakura's forced healing had obviously closed the wounds, but the flesh there was different now. The skin was slightly puckered and glistened like proper scars, but they hadn't turned pale—instead, they had grown dark, as though the flesh had been mended by adding swatches of Bakura's tanned skin.

**Perhaps, that's how it happened**, Bakura commented on the thought.

Ryou stared at himself in the mirror. Truth be told, he'd always imagined that this was what he would look like in a few years—barring the scars—but to make that transition overnight? "People are going to notice," he murmured, biting his lip.

Bakura laughed. **No, they won't. Well**, he corrected, **Yugi might, because the Sennen Puzzle unclouds his eyes, but you don't have to hide from him.**

"What do you mean?" the boy asked.

**The Sennen Items bend reality**, the spirit explained. **No one notices when I possess you or the spirit of the Puzzle possesses Yugi, because the Items won't allow them to. Even though you look different in that state, they can't see it—**_**unless**_** they too have a Sennen Item.**

Ryou sat heavily on the tile floor. "And why don't I need to hide from Yugi? Right now, he's the last person I want to see."

**He's too sympathetic to shun you**, Bakura soothed. **Besides, he'll be experiencing strange things because of his own Item. You're his only form of moral support in that respect, the only person that can know from experience what he's going through.**

"I just wish I could say the same about him to me," Ryou whispered.

**You put too much value on your friends**, Bakura shrugged inwardly, the motion echoing through Ryou's body. **You have **_**me**_**, what more do you need?**

"Sanity, for one," the boy muttered. "Personal space, for another."

The spirit chuckled darkly. **You instigated this**, he reminded. **No one forced you to steal the Ring back, or to seal my soul into your body. You made those choices on your own. Whatever happens from this moment forward is your doing just as much as mine.**

Ryou sighed, laying his head in his hands and trying to ignore to the persistent feeling that he had double everything he should. "How long will it take for you to fix the Ring?" he asked after a few moments.

**I'll look into it**, the spirit replied. **But, in the mean time, we have something else to turn our attention to.**

"What's that?" the boy asked, but suddenly froze. Thoughts had slithered out of the darkness, half-formed notions that twisted around his brain in a shadowy dance. They weren't his thoughts, and he couldn't fully understand them—they belonged to the ancient.

**Just a little research for now**, Bakura soothed. **I'm curious to see where the other Sennen Items ended up after all these years.**

But Ryou knew it was more than that. For everything he could not understand, he did know that the black ideas swimming around his soul where not nearly so innocent. He was about to press the spirit for more information when his doorbell rang. "Do you think they'll go away if I just stay here?"

**Probably not**, Bakura shook his head, **especially since it's Yugi.**

"You can't know that," Ryou snorted.

**You just broke into his house last night**, the spirit replied. **Who else could it be?**

"I don't know," the boy replied as he quickly found a shirt to throw over his head. "My family, maybe?"

**I'll bet you two earrings it's Yugi**, Bakura baited.

Ryou didn't stop to think about it. "You're on," he agreed, then opened the front door.

Yugi stood timidly on the other side.

Bakura's smugness was nearly tangible. **I'm partial to gold**, he laughed quietly, **but I wouldn't say no to silver earrings.**

Ryou groaned.

"I'm sorry," Yugi apologized immediately. "Is this a bad time?"

"No," the paler boy hastened to assure—after all, he might not want to see Yugi, but he didn't want to hurt the boy's feelings. "I was just thinking of something unpleasant. What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me—" Yugi paused, eyeing Ryou with a frown. "What happened to your hair?"

Ryou shrugged and laughed nervously. "I may have tried to cut it during a bout of temporary blindness."

"Oh. I—" the Yugi stopped again, looking suspicious once more. "Look, I know I'm short, but you seem taller today than you did yesterday. In fact, you look different all around. What happened?"

**He's integrated with the spirit of the Ring**, a dark voice answered. From the nothingness beside Yugi, a figure emerged. It bled out of the air, the flashing, erratic memory of another ancient Egyptian. He looked much like Yugi, only tanned, much taller, and infinitely more dangerous. Where Yugi was unfailingly sweet and naïve, this new ghost was edgy, wild, and his eyes were haunted by the same insanity that lurked in Bakura's gaze.

So this was the true face of the Other Yugi, Ryou thought, absently noting that the air around him had shifted imperceptibly. Bakura had appeared at this new challenge.

Yugi took a step back when the ancient Tomb Robber's gaze landed on him. "_This_ is the spirit of the Ring?" he asked. "_This_ is who you broke into my house for?"

**Oh, you'd be surprised what this one could do, little Yugi**, Bakura smirked widely, wrapping his arms around Ryou's shoulders. **Especially for me.**

Ryou ignored his spirit. "And you wouldn't have done the same if our roles had been reversed?" he asked the violet eyed teen. "You can't expect me to believe that you're any less dependant than I am, or that he," he indicated the Other Yugi, "is a paragon of morality."

Yugi deflated a little, and his spirit's hackles instantly rose. **We're trying to protect you!** he snapped. **The Ring and that monster inside it will poison your mind, twist you into a beast.**

**You'd like to think that**, Bakura purred. **You want me to be the villain, because it makes you seem like the hero by contrast.** He laughed, a manic sound that pressed through Ryou's soul. **But the simple truth is that you're no better for Yugi than I am for Ryou.**

Yugi fidgeted, clutching his Puzzle. "I didn't come here to fight."

"Then what did you come for?" Ryou asked as the spirits glared at each other.

"I have a bad feeling," the short boy answered. "Something's not right about all this, but I can see now that you'll stay willfully blind to that fact until it's too late. I'm sorry to have bothered you." He turned around, his spirit trailing after him as he slowly retreated.

"Yugi," Ryou began, hating to see his friend go. Bakura's ethereal grip tightened on his shoulders—why did he always have to choose between what was safe and normal, and what belonged to the Ring, to Bakura? He wanted both, but it seemed as though he could only ever have one at a time.

**He'll come around before long**, Bakura said quietly as the short boy disappeared into the distance.

"What makes you think so?" Ryou asked, turning back into his apartment.

The spirit smiled and shook his head. **Just a few days ago, Yugi and the spirit of the Puzzle were barely even aware of each other. Now look at them. **He shook his head again. **It's only a matter of time before the Other Yugi reveals his true colors.**

The pale boy slumped onto his sofa. "His true colors?"

Bakura followed him into the living room, seating himself atop the low coffee table. **He's scheming, and ruthless**, he shrugged. **Not unlike myself, really, but he tries to hide it under a mask of nobility.**

Ryou began to massage his aching chest—there was still some lingering pain from the night before. "So you two knew each other in life, then?"

**In a peripheral sort of way**, the spirit nodded. **Our paths crossed once or twice, but we never truly **_**knew**_** one another. However, you could say that he's a big part of the reason I'm here to have this conversation with you.**

"This all has to do with the Sennen Items, doesn't it?" Ryou asked tiredly.

**Indeed, it does**, Bakura chuckled. **But that's neither here nor there—for the time being, you and I have more important things to do. Like research.**

Ryou sighed. He knew precious little about the Sennen Items, but he could tell already that nothing good would come of locating the others. Bakura undoubtedly had plans for them—plans that he would not see fit to tell Ryou until the last moment possible. It was a dicey situation to be in, but having fought so hard to reclaim his dark incarnation, Ryou knew he couldn't say no—not yet, anyway.

* * *

A/N: As suggested by the title, this track of the album was only a short instrumental piece—hence, no lyrics. Because of that, this chapter gave me more problems than any chapter before it, as I had no real jumping off point (which accounts for its shortness as well).

Also, we have reached the halfway point of this particular journey! Chapter seven marks the very middle of this story.

Many, many thanks to all the wonderful people who have reviewed so far!

Please review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


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